


Cold waters, warm hearts

by Barricadesatfleetstreet



Category: Avatar (TV), Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Another titanic fic, Forced Marriage, I fail at tagging and titles sorry, M/M, Mai is asexual/aromantic here, There will be bending but only a tiny bit, mai is pretty cool though, sokka is bisexual but he doesn't say that here but still, zuko is gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:28:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3412331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barricadesatfleetstreet/pseuds/Barricadesatfleetstreet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another fanfiction based on  the movie Titanic. The homosexual Zuko is to wed Mai who happens to be asexual/aromantic and meets a bisexual third class passenger who happens to be Sokka. But of course there are quite a few problems named Ozai and Azula, and the fact that the unsinkable ship is perhaps more sinkable than thought. </p><p>*this is not just the Titanic script where I just changed the names I promise*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Zuko looked up at a grand ship laying in the docs in front of him. The boy wore a nice navy blue suit and black shoes in order to make people think his family was very rich but as nice as his outfit was, nothing could cover up his hair that looked like it hadn't been combed properly for the past few years. A few bangs hung over his scar on purpose.  
He wasn't really impressed by the ship as it didn't seem much bigger than the other ships he had been on.  
He and his sister sailed often for people age, 18 and 16, constantly going from London, England to New York, USA as he had familymembers in both countries but today wasn't exactly to get to his family, oh no, it was to get to his bride's family. The worst thing was, he had seen his 'bride' like 3 times, and it's not like he didn't like her or something, he just didn't feel anything for her. He never felt anything for anyone, certainly not for girls.  
"You're so hard to impress," Azula laughed next to him, noticing how the boy wasn't looking at the ship like it was a world wonder, like most other people around them did. "They say Titanic is the biggest thing made my human hands up till now. It's unsinkable," she said again.  
"Everything from steel is sinkable," Zuko said, not eying his sister. He wasn't a fool, every ship that was well-built had just as much chances of sinking as any other with a little bit of bad luck.  
"Looks like your bride-to-be isn't that happy either," Azula said, turning around as Ozai and Mai, Zuko's 'bride', walked towards them. 

"Hi Zuko," the girl said. She had pitchblack hair that was tied up but a few locks still hung out, making it clear she didn't put much effort into it. She also had straight bangs almost covering her eyes and an familiar, uninterested, bored expression on her face. She wore a long, black dress with red sleeves which made Zuko wonder if she wasn't basically melting from the heat. During the three times they'd met, Zuko had never seen her without that uninterested look on her face. It was like everything in this world bored her, and this annoyed him quite lot, but at least it made clear she didn't want this either. Maybe that was even a good thing, they didn't have to really do anything right? Just live together really, and it's not like he would ever find another woman he'd like, and a male well... Now, Zuko didn't really think of her as ugly or something, she was rather beautiful even and the dark look really went on her, but she was just so morbid, you could even see it in her clothes  
"Bow for the lady, son," his father spoke, looking at his son, making clear he found it rather unpolite to not bow, so Zuko quickly did, which caused an awkward silence for a few second. 

"Shall we get on the ship?" Azula asked after a few seconds of silence, in the voice which she only spoke with when she was talking to their father.  
Zuko took Mai's arm and led her to her room. His whole life he had gotten lessons and classes of how to behave like a real gentleman and Ozai had made it pretty clear that Zuko should show off all that knowledge now. 

Normally, Mai and Zuko would stay in the same room, but luckily for him, Mai's parents were extremely religious and made clear they didn't want their daughter spending the night with someone before the marriage.  
Zuko's room was next to Azula's, and right across the hall were Mai's and Ozai's.  
"Do you want me to help you unpack?" Zuko offered, trying to be as nice as possible, but he coming of as pretty awkward. Mai's room was decorated with flowers and had flower prints on couches, most furniture actually.  
"Please, where do you think servants are for? They get paid for this, you know?" Mai said. She sat herself down in front of the big mirror and tried to put the loose bangs of hair back in place.  
"These colours make me want to throw up," she said before Zuko could even reply.  
"uh-... I guess you won't need any helpt then... I'm uhm-... I'll be in my room," Zuko said, not fully sure if it was appropriate to leave her alone in her room right now, but did it anyway.  
"I think your father said dinner is at eight," she didn't move her eyes from the mirror.  
"Okay, I'll pick you up in your room at 7:50," he said, really leaving now. 

 

It was only a matter of time before Azula entered his room with a big wicked grin on her face. His room looked quite much the same as Mai's, only the couch was in leather.  
"Why are you not in Mai's room right now? I don't think father would be happy knowing you're not bounding with her," she laughed. Her hair was tightly pulled into a knot, and she wore a red sleeveless dress.  
"Why am I even the one who has to marry someone? It might as well could have been you!" Zuko said angrily flopping on his bed.  
"Oh Zuzu, you know how it works, a girl with a good name marries a wealthy boy. Her name brings honour to our family Zuzu, you know that, father has told you this often enough!" she grinned again.  
"We could turn it around, we could find a honourable man for you," he argued even though he was pretty proud about the fact he actually honoured his family for once, even if it's only by marrying someone.  
"Yea, well, we didn't. And even so, Mai was the easiest, we've known her family for so long. Of course those dumbheads she has for parents agreed right away. What people would do for a little money," she turned around.  
"Get yourself ready for dinner in an hour, your hair makes you look like a tramp," she said, using the voice she used for everyone except for her father, and threw the door closed. 

Surely she wouldn't have to marry anyone she didn't want to marry, she was her father's favourite. She honoured the family enough of her own. She was a great actress pretending to be the sweetest, best daughter ever.  
Zuko had to do everything just to get a tiny bit of proudness out of his dad, while Azula was literally his favourite person in the world. Sometimes, he really envied her.  
If only Zuko's mother would be here, or even Iroh, his uncle. 

He finally stood up and looked in the mirror. Azula was right ofcourse, his hair looked aweful, but this was the only way to make the scar a tiny less noticable. He knew he had to push his hair to the back anyway to look classy, not that a huge read burnmark all across his left eye looked classy but okay.  
Everyone always made up their own stories of how he got his scar, because that's the thing about people, they love to gossip and when they don't know something about someone, they'll just make it up anyway. He knew it wouldn't be any different now, first class is always the first to gossip. Only Ozai, Azula and himself truly knew how he got the scar, and Azula surely wouldn't tell others, that would shame their father too much, and if she'd shame her father, she'd ruin her image of perfect daughter. Zuko himself never told others because it shamed him way too much too. 

A servant came in holding a good amount of suitcases, all of which Zuko's, who were stuffed with suits. As said before, he had to look as classy as possible, had to be a real gentleman to make his father proud.  
"Please give me the smaller one and you can put the rest in the corner over there," he said demanding, standing up. In the smaller one Zuko had all his hair- and faceproduct and whatnot.  
"Do you want me to unpack?"  
"No, that's alright," he said. He hated it when people went through his stuff.  
"Do you want me to help with that?" The lady asked again, noticing the boy had a bit of a problem trying to maintain his hair.  
"No, thanks," he said again, coldly, raising his voice just a little. Honestly, he didn't mean to be rude towards servants, he never really was until he noticed around age 12 that every time he thanked someone who helped him, his father would roll his eyes, and Azula, who would never thank her people, always got a sort of smile from their dad.  
His mother thaught him thankfulness, but when she died that kinda faded away.  
"You can go now," he said. He had about 30 minutes left before dinner. He had thought about trying to make the scar less noticable with make up but let's just say that didn't work at all. 

He somehow managed to get his hair all smoothed to the back and put on a black suit in time.  
"So, do you like your room?" Zuko asked after a few minutes of awkward silence.  
Mai made a small 'meh' voice before saying "it's just a ship. Be have to spend like, what? 7? 8? Days on here, it's not that big of a deal," Mai said in her uninterested voice. After a few seconds, she also said "it's a pity about the colours and the flowers though."  
Zuko wasn't quite sure how he felt about the girl, she could be pretty harsh and constantly looked annoyed and all of that, but sometimes, just once in a while, she'd say something very poetic, very cold and harsh, but something so true it made Zuko think for a while. But that had only happened like twice before, and Zuko wondered when it would happen again, because that were the main moment when he though he might could manage living with her for the rest of his life if he really had to.  
He also realized he was being pretty selfish, because he might could live with the fact that he'd never find so-called 'true love', she may didn't. He really wanted to know her opinion on all of this to be honest, but it was too weird. What would he ask? Hi, Mai, do you want to marry me just as less as I wanna marry you?  
After all, it was both their parents decision rather than their own.

"I already ordered for you two," Ozai said when they they joined the table, right on time.  
"Great, this better not be a salad," Mai said full of annoyance so quietly Zuko was pretty sure he was the only one who heard her say it as he moved her chair so she could sit and he could show his father he was a gentleman. At least they agreed on something, they both weren't quite happy they couldn't choose their food themselfs.  
Dinner was long and dreadful, Zuko's father tried and tried asking Mai questions, constantly receving short answers, while Azula grinned at Zuko and occasionally joined into the conversation. Sometimes she'd mouth things like 'woaw, she's a real charmer' to Zuko when Mai wasn't looking, just to annoy him, and it wasn't gonna work, he was gonna keep his anger under controle, he had to if he wanted to survive this trip. His dad would be furious if he'd yell at his sister, surely over dinner. 

"I don't feel really well, I'm just gonna get some fresh air," Zuko excused himself after dinner while his father was still trying to talk to the girl. Ozai didn't look exactly happy, but he nod anyway. He had to be alone for just a while really, everybody was getting so on his nerves and if he had to listen to one of his father's wartales he'd told thd siblings for about a million times, he'd probably freak out so he walked up on deck, leaned on the rails. The stars shined brighter than normally. He looked at the lower deck to see a few people from 2nd and 3th class. They were poorly dressed and must have been freezing right now, and yet they looked happy.


	2. Chapter 2

Everything was peaceful for a while, everything was even in place, but Zuko was torn. What would he do? Could he really marry Mai, forcing both of them to spend a life together never really meeting someone new? But he couldn't just disobey his father, right? It would show just once again that Azula is the perfect kid and he's not. He was quite sure his father would even throw him out if he didn't marry, and where would he live then? 

After a while, he decided to go back before his dad started looking after him. It has been 10 minutes he had been outside too and he started to get cold too.  
All of the sudden as he was about to turn around, a weight hit his side in suprise and he knocked over. Great, just great. 

"Hey! Watch out you!" He yelled automatically at the stranger and looked up. In front of him a boy of his age who looked in shock back at Zuko. He had piercing blue eyes and was pretty well tanned, Zuko would consider him pretty handsome if he weren't looking at the guy from a pretty bad angle. Zuko guessed he was around his age and he was a tiny bit smaller than he himself. 

"I'm so sorry, sir," the boy said, holding a hand out to Zuko to help him get up, but Zuko didn't grab his hand, he doesn't need to be helped, he was perfectly capable of standing up himself. 

He looked down at the boy's clothes and noticed right away the boy couldn't possibly be first class. He wore a dark blue loose shirt and black pants with a few sains on it. His hair looked pretty trampy, but in a good way sort off, if that was even possible. Zuko was pretty sure he must have been freezing too, the tempature was pretty low. 

"You're not first class," was all he could bring out. The remark came over coldly, even though he didn't mean to. Maybe it was pretty to say that, but this was an 'only first class allowed' deck after all.

"I know, I was just-... Look I'm sorry I bumped into you but please don't call anyone from the crew, it's like the first day on this boat and I've already gotten myself into trouble a few times." The boy looked down and lowered his voice, nervously putting his hand in his neck. 

"Well, it's not like they can throw you off the boat or something," Zuko said and the boy and he had a small laugh for a second, followed by an awkward silence. 

He didn't even know why he hadn't called the crew yet, why he was still talking to the boy. He knew for a matter than his father would right away, and maybe that's just why he didn't. Ozai wasn't here anyway, so what could the harm be? 

"I'm Sokka," the boy held out his hand once again, and quite unsurely, Zuko shook it. 

"Zuko," he said and cracked a light smile. 

"Well, Zuko, I think I'd better be going now, to like, my own part of the ship before I knock somebody else over, who will tell on me" he said and laughed. Just as he about to turn around and walk back towards third class, Zuko stopped him. "Wait-..."

A few seconds of silence. 

"What's it like, in third class?" He wondered. They all looked so happy when Zuko saw them standing there on the decks, but he also noticed most of them didn't have complete families. A single woman with 2 children on her side, men and women running around all alone, stuff like that. 

"Ah, you know, you get sick of eating oatmeal whole day long. You never really get to eat fancy things like meat. God I miss meat, not that I used to eat it a lot or something I just really love meat you know," Sokka said, with a small laugh. He looked down and put his hand in his hair for a second.

"But you know, it isn't that bad," he added. 

"Are you traveling alone?" Zuko changed the subject a little before a got a whole lecture on meats. 

"You sure have a lot of questions, Zuko," the guy grinned, leaning into the railing too now, looking up to the stars just like Zuko had a few minutes ago. 

"But no, I'm here with my sister, her name's Katara. She's at the steerage party, sort off," he went on. 

"You must have a lot of freedom..." he trailed off.

"Ah well you know, freedom is one of the most important things in the world, right?" The guy looked at him now. 

There was a long silence, but it wasn't awkward or anything. One of the things Zuko never really understood about this world is why everyone always felt the need to talk to one other, people always had the need to say often random things that will change nothing in the other's life. Sure, talking was nice from time to time, just not all the time. 

"ZUKO?" Ozai's voice suddenly was heard in the distance, making Zuko jump up. If his father saw him with Sokka, he'd get angry for sure. 

"I think someo-"

"Go," Zuko said harshly, looking into the smaller boy's eyes. Pushing the guy lightly. 

"What?" Sokka looked up. 

"GO!" He raised his voice a little, not much though, if he'd yell, his father would hear right away. 

Once when Azula and Zuko were about 7 and 9, Azula had dragged him with her into his father's office, because Azula was a very curious kid who wanted to see what her father did for a living once from nearby. When Zuko started arguing, knowing his father would be furious if they'd find them, he raised his voice just a tiny bit too much, making his father notice the two kids. Of course Azula blamed her older brother, and of course the girl didn't get into trouble while Zuko did. 

"O-Okay..." Sokka said with a weird face, slowly walking away making sure to not walk into a crewmember.

"ZUKO! There you are! What the hell are you doing here so long?" His fater said with a loud voice that did not sound happy at all. 

"I was just... Looking at the stars-..." He tried. 

"Looking at the stars? Take at least your girl with you when you do such thing, are you gonna wait to get to know Mai until your 5th anniversary or something?"

"No it's just, well stars aren't really Mai's-"

"Don't talk back to me. Get back to dinner son," he said in a demanding voice and Zuko followed him.  
Another 10 minutes of absolute boringness before Mai made clear she was tired and wanted to get back to her room, luckily for Zuko. 

"Let me bring you to your room," he offered his hand. 

"You can thank me for getting you out of there," Mai said once they were around the corner. The dress she wore to dinner certainly was a much nicer dress than she wore when they boarded the ship, but was black and had long sleeves too.

"Right, thanks," he said, looking down. She had a point, his father would probably keep the dinner going for years if she didn't leave. 

"Does he ever stop talking?" She sighed. 

"You better get used to it, I've heard his stories about a million times, beleave me, he will keep repeating them," the boy said in annoyance.

"Lucky us," Mai said in a sarcastic voice with a tiny laugh. Probably the first time Zuko saw her laugh, even if it was only for a spil second. 

After a few more minutes talking in silence, they'd finally arrived in the hallway where their rooms were. Only a few maids ran around in the hallway, some of them holding a suitcase or a piece of decoration. 

"Right, goodnight Zuko," Mai said while walking in her room. The boy did a tiny wave towards his soon-to-be wife and went into his room. 

Finally, he thought, grabbing a comb right away, putting his hair back like it was when they boarded. In 7 days, they'd get off of this ship. In 8 days, he'd meet Mai's parents once again and had to make some final decisions for the wedding, not that he really had anything to say about that, his father made all the decisions for him really. And in 15 days, they'd be married. 

Honestly, it scared the young man. Is 18 really an age to marry? Were Mai's parents saying the same stuff to her as his father said to Zuko?  
If he were just as lucky as Azula was... 

He didn't need luck though, if Zuko wanted to be a real man, he had make his own luck. 

His mind trailed off about what Sokka had said about the party back in third class. He knew for a matter they probably weren't the same as the 'parties' in first class, who were extremly boring and expensive. 

He had made up his mind, tomorrow, he'd find Sokka and ask him some more questions. He wanted to know more about the world for once. All he ever saw were rich, ignorant people. He just had to make sure neither his father or his sister would find out. Maybe he could tell Mai, he wasn't quite sure yet, but he'd go talk to her tomorrow anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so everyone knows, this takes place on 11 April, 1912 of course :)

It was 9AM and Zuko stood in front of Mai's door. His father had told the boy before boarding that he should spend some time with Mai on the ship and not lock himself up in his cabin like the boy always did. 

They hadn't made any plans for lunch all together, so he decided to just do it with Mai alone. 

"Care to go for a walk?" Zuko asked when Mai opened the door. It was quite clear she had just woken up and quickly put on something as she clearly didn't wear her corset under a blood-red gown and her hair was pretty much all over the place. Not that he really cared about the corset, but he had heard from his sister it was rather unpropper to wear one. He didn't really care about the hair either, he found it rather stupid people had to follow all those rules to look nice towards others, like it's gonna improve someone's life or something like that. 

"Can you wait for 10 minutes?" She said, calling in a maid in, probably to tighten her corset and do her hair. 

He wasn't really sure if he should go back to his room waiting for Mai to come get him or not so he just stood there waiting in the hallway for a few minutes. A few maids passed him asking if he needed anything. 

Of course that's also the exact time when his sister decided to go outside of her room for once. 

"Zuzu, what are you doing in the hallway? You're room is over there, if you hadn't noticed yet, hope you didn't sleep here or something," She laughed clearly thinking of herself as funny, quickly putting one of the bobbypins in her hair in the right place. 

"I'm waiting for Mai, we're gonna take a walk," he informed his sister, hoping she'd leave him alone. 

"Have you had breakfast yet?" She really had this constant grin on her face while talking to her brother. 

"I'm not hungry."

"Maybe Mai is, it's not very proper to decide yourself if your girl should have breakfast or not, if a man would do that to me, oh..." Azula grinned. Somehow, she found it very amuzing that her brother had to marry someone and was going to make sure the boy wouldn't forget about it. 

"You do realize that on the day of my wedding, you're not gonna stand in the spotlight for once, right?" He said, which wasn't even a reply to what his sister had said but oh well. He had noticed how Azula always had to bring everything to her with her all her 'if that'd happen to me' or 'that time I' and stuff like that. She needed so much attention it literally asked so much energy from the people around her. 

"You guys done talking?" Mai came outside, wearing the same dress as which she had opened the door with, but now with corset and nicely pinned-up hair.

"Yes," Zuko said, standing up straight and taking her arm, "bye Azula." 

"You're sister is clearly your father's child," Mai said one they were upstairs, like Zuko didn't know that himself. "I've already saved you from them two twice in less than 24 hours" 

"Probably why she's his the favourite and why she can choose who she's gonna marry, but thank you for the saving, I guess," Zuko said before realizing that might came out pretty rude, "no offence," he quickly added. 

"Non taken, I get what you mean, I don't see my little brother getting married either. Of course he's like 4 years old, but still," the girl said with the same blank expression as always. 

"Wh-... How do you feel about this whole situation?" Zuko managed to ask, because he honestly really wanted to know and now there was no one near them to hear so it was okay, right?

"I was pretty mad at first, but my dad made clear we really need the money and it's not like I'm ever gonna be able to really fall in love anyway so well, whatever," she said in her same bored voice as always. 

Hearing her actually say that came over as pretty cruel, even though Zuko had been thinking the same thing since they boarded. Maybe they weren't so different at all. Perhaps they could be pretty good friends one day...

"Why do you think you won't ever fall in love?" The boy asked. 

"You know how most people fall in love with the opposite gender, but some people fall in love with the same gender, and some even fall in love with both genders, right? So why wouldn't it be possible to just NOT get attracted to any gender at all? I know many people won't believe me in this, I know many people will say 'you just haven't met the right one, you're still so young', but it is like that Zuko. This society teaches us we're supposed to fall in love with one person of the other gender, right? But it doesn't mean every one feels that way, it almost teaches us only some people have the 'right feelings', to sat it like that" she finished. There it was, one of the things that was interesting about Mai, something she had clearly thought through, bringing more questions to other people's lives. 

For a second, Zuko wanted to reply something, but he stopped himself. Maybe this was the right time to tell Mai he had already more often been attracted to men rather than to women (not that he was at all attacted to people very often but still) but maybe it wasn't. Perhaps it never really was a time to tell your soon-to-be wife that. 

"Looks like that third class passenger can't keep his eyes of you," she said when they were both had stopped walking and were leaning over the rails, looking at the back of the schip. In front of him was indeed the third class' deck. 

"Where?" He asked, looking down at the most often poorly dressed people, scanning the crowd. 

"Bit more to your left..." She helped him without pointing because that obviously would be pretty rude. 

"Sokka...?" Zuko said more to himself than to may as he managed to still reconise the boy who looked pretty small because of the distance. And Sokka was definitely looking at either Mai or Zuko. 

"You know him?" She asked, wondering how someone with such strict parents who wanted their son to only know rich people even knew a guy like that. 

Zuko looked away from the tanned boy, realizing they were probably creeping eachother out by staring, because he was definitely creeped out. "We've met briefly before."

"Do you wanna go talk to him or something?" 

Disbelieve grew in his eyes, he had never met a rich person before who actually suggested to go talk to a... Well... Not-rich person unless the press was following them and it was for charity. "What about my father? What if he sees me, or sees you without me or something like that? He'd kill me."

"I'll cover you, I'll find something, don't worry," Mai said and it was almost as if her voice didn't sound as bored as normal, even if it was only for a second. 

"Can I just go on that deck?"

"Relax, they kick them out when they go near first class but I'm pretty sure it doesn't work the other way around!" She almost laughed and after a few seconds of doubt, Zuko stood on the small staircase going to the lower class' deck. 

 

"Hey," he smiled at the boy who had stopped staring at him when he started to move. He clearly didn't expect Zuko to suddenly stand next to him as he now was talking to a girl, about just as tan as himself with the same deep blue eyes. She wore a long gown that had clearly been worn multiple times before in light blue. 

"Oh God, you scared me!" Sokka jumped up. "Wha- what are you doing here? Wrong deck?" 

The taller boy suddenly noticed that most people were looking at him now. Did first class really never came here? Oh he hoped his father wasn't going to notice he had been here to talk to Sokka. 

"I-... Well I was walking here and I decided to come talk to you because-..." Zuko stopped. Because. Yes Zuko, because what? It was kind of automatically he came here, he knew he wanted to, he just didn't know fully why. He hadn't even thought about what he would want to ask or say. Perhaps it was his curiosity, because there was so much he wanted to ask the guy yesterday, about freedom, about the real world and not just the small rich parts he himself had seen, about everything really. "Because I-... I don't really know I was just walking and... Care to join me? Promenading can be boring alone." 

Suddenly, the tanned girl cut in and said with a grin, more to Sokka than to Zuko, "Are you gonna leave me alone then right now or are you gonna at least introduce me first, Sokka?" 

"Right, Zuko, this is my sister Katara. Katara, this is the rich boy I knocked over yesterday night, also known as Zuko," he said with a shy laugh. The girl stood up and shook Zuko's hand. "Are you gonna be okay?" 

"Don't worry, just go already," Katara said with a smile. 

After a few moments of walking in silence, Zuko decided to start talking. Well, talking, more like asking even more questions. "Why are you going to America?"

"Well, sir Asks A Lot Of Questions," the guy teased, "we visited out Grandmother back in England for a while but we decided to go back to America now. We get bored of places easily."

"Do you have family in America too?"

"No, not really, but we grew up there so we decided to just see when we're there where we're gonna go and stuff like that. It'll work out. Besides, a little adventure has never killed any one right? Okay maybe it has if the adventure involved crocodiles but you know," he laughed, "Why are you going to America?"

"To get married to a girl who just told me she's some sort of anti-romantic-person or whatever you will call it to honour my family," Zuko snorted. Saying it out loud made it even sound more stupid than it felt. Why did he even say THAT out loud? Wasn't it enough to just say 'to get married' or something?

"Well that's something I haven't really heard before very often," he grinned. "Tell me more."

"There isn't much to tell," he sighed. It was stupid to start talking about this really. 

"Why do you marry her if neither of you really want to?" He said. 

"I told you, to make my family proud, and her family makes her marry me because we're rich. That's how the world works." he said. Of course Sokka wouldn't understand, what did Zuko even expect? 

"So you're willing to marry a girl and spend your whole life with her just to 'make your family happy?'" The tanner guy raised an eyebrow. "Also, that's not really how the world works, at least not the whole world, not the one I grew up in."

"It's what I was meant to do in live, I suppose," Zuko didn't look at the other boy anymore now, but he honestly did want to know about 'his world', how could two people be so different?

"It's no one's purpose of life to marry just someone like that," Sokka argued. 

"It's not that easy, please drop it, like I said, in my world that is how it works." Zuko rolled his eyes and kept walking. 

"So you can ask as many questions as you like and I can't ask one. Noted," he didn't really say it in a mean way or something, but it still didn't sound so happy. 

"No it's not like that!" Zuko said, raising his voice, causing a few people to stop and look at him. "Please let it go, I don't like to talk about it, okay?" 

"Okay, okay. Can I ask you if you about your family?" 

"Well, I have a sister, Azula, you don't wanna know her, believe me. Unless you wanna feel really selfless because she's probably the most selfish person ever so that might boosts your own self-esteem or something, I don't know. We live with our father. I also have an uncle named Iroh. He's way different from my dad, sometimes I wish I could just l-..." What was it with this guy that made Zuko tell him about his whole life and his feelings? Normally, he didn't speak like this to anyone, surely not to someone he had just met. "What do you do to pass time?" He tried, changing the subject. 

"Nothing much really, I can play some instruments but I don't actually own any at the moment because my guitar broke and they're really expensive so... You?" Ah so there was a down side to this whole being poor thing: having no money to buy guitars. 

The boy stopped to look at the sea for a second and then turned his head towards Zuko, looking him right in the eyes. Honestly, it was a wonder he hadn't asked about the scar yet. No one really ever asked but he had never really asked so much to someone else either so... 

"I take mutiple classes but the one I like the most is swordfighting," 

"That looks really cool, not that I've seen people do it often but you know," the guy replied. 

Suddenly, the alarm of trumpets could be heard making it clear it was about time for first class lunch and he better did do that with Mai if his father came checking. 

"It's late, I think I might better start heading back before father... Can I have your room number?" Zuko's brain needed a filter real quickly because it just kept talking to Sokka and asking for room numbers and all that out of itself.

"334," Sokka grinned at him. "Hope to see you again."


	4. Chapter 4

7AM, a few hard knocks on the door woke the young boy. He'd reconised those knocks anywhere, they were his father's. Ozai used to wake up the siblings every day to go to school when their mom hadn't died yet and he'd go into Azula's room waking her up nicely, but he always woke Zuko with 5 heavy knocks on the door with a certain amount of time between each one (about 2 seconds). 

"Please give me a minute father," he tried to say as confident and politely as possible, which was kinda hard as he was having a full panick attack. Ozai probably knew. He knew about Sokka and he knew about yesterday and he would absolutely kill Zuko. 

The younger boy put on some clothes real quick because his dad had often enough told him he couldn't just go ahead opening the door in his nightware and opened the door, standing up straight trying to keep his breathing under control. "Hello, Father." 

"Zuko, where were you all day yesterday, huh? I didn't see you at all," His father asked, looking dangerously at his son. 

"I was-... I was walking on deck. First I was with Mai but she wanted to go back to her room so I went on on my own," what if this was a test? What if his father had asked Mai where Zuko was and she covered up for him like she said and his father just came to ask him too to see if they weren't lying at him. But this way he didn't ly, well not fully at least. 

"You really must spend some more time with your lady, Zuko. You're really ruining it all! Did you forget why you're here, why you have to marry, Zuko?" He asked in his regular voice, he didn't sound more angry than usual to be honest, but his tone still made Zuko shiver. 

"No father, I'm sorry," and with that, Ozai left the room. Zuko still wasn't sure if it was a test or not, but he knew one thing for sure, he couldn't talk with Sokka anymore, he couldn't go back to third class. But it was only fair towards the smaller boy to at least tell him they shouldn't see eachother anymore, so Zuko had the great idea to go down to third class and tell him. After all, he had his room number. He quickly grabbed a coat and slipped out of his room, making sure that his dad wouldn't notice, even though he didn't know where he was. 

The change from first to second class was noticable, but from first to third, it was honestly so different, it blew his mind it was all on the same boat.  
Through the halls all different kinds of people who were speaking all kinds of different languages looked stangely at him. His all-black suit, black leather shoes and 'nicely' combed hair probably impressed the people quite a bit. 

He also noticed the halls wereway colder out here than in first class, and there were even some benches in the hallways. There were also a lot more kids, but Zuko was really bad with kids so that wasn't a very good thing. 

It was pretty hard to find a specific room to be honest, as there were way less crewmembers running around to ask and there were way more rooms. 

After a good 20 minutes of looking, Zuko finally found it, number 334. But what would he say? 'Yes, I'd appreciate it if you won't talk to me anymore, you poor peasant'? Did he even have any obligations at all to say anything to the guy at all? He doubted they'd even speak again anyway, if he'd say something or not.

Those were the moments he wished he would have spent less time with his uncle and mother, the two people who maybe, just maybe, made him so weak by planting a bit of happiness, thankfulness and kindness in his head (and heart) that kept coming up at moments like these. His sister wouldn't have this problem at all, she wouldn't even have spoken to the guy if he'd have bumped into her, just called for some people to get him back to his own part of the ship and that's it. 

She never listened to their uncle or mother. 

But no, Zuko liked the stories his uncle had to tell, and he loved his mother a whole lot, so he couldn't do that. He couldn't be 100% heartless all the time. His damn curiosity forced him to ask questions, and the last damn tiny bit of kindness he had left forced him to keep going yesterday. 

And yet he wondered why his father liked his sister better. Ha, it was almost pathetic really. 

He took a deep breath, stood up straight and knocked on the door anyway. He had to do this. 

"Is Sokka here?" He asked when a guy, probably a Norwegian from what the boy had guessed, opened the door. He was kind of perplex about the fact that some random guy opened the door. Zuko could look into the rooms and saw 2 beds with on both another bed on top of it, and a tiny lavabo, all in a room smaller than half of his room. That probably explains the random guy, they actually had to share a room. 

Sokka came from behind the door and stepped outside, closing the door behind him. The hallway was quiet now. He was still in his underwear which Zuko guessed was also his nightwear. His hair was down for once, and even though he had huge bags under his eyes, they were blue as ever. "Zuko, I didn't expect you, surely not this early! What is it? Another question?" He grinned. 

"Actually I-..." The taller boy looked away and bit his lip. "I came to tell you that I'd be better if we wouldn't speak again," this should not be that hard. How come it was this hard? He barely knew the guy and he had often been mean toward people, why was this a problem?

"Uhm, okay, I... I-"

"Look it's nothing to do with you but you know my dad and my... Girl and..." 

"Oh no, I get it, nevermind, it was nice meeting you, Zuko," Sokka said with a slight annoyance in his voice as he shook his hand and went back inside. He was very short towards Zuko, but honestly, who could blame him?

The boy stood leaning against the wall for some minutes after Sokka had left. He didn't know why he felt so terrible about this, honestly he didn't, but it was something about Sokka that just... Drew Zuko to him.

Maybe he should go talk to Mai, she seemed to be understanding enough yesterday, right? She was the only one who didn't look down that much on third class. 

He quickly made his way back to first class before his dad noticed that he was gone again and knocked on Mai's door. She only opened after a few minutes. "Okay if we're gonna marry, you're gonna have to learn to not wake me up before 10 in the morning," she said in her usual voice. 

He had almost forgotten it wasn't even noon yet. With the whole thing with his dad and Sokka and running to third class, he had the feeling he had been awake for hours, while in reality, it had only been two. 

"I hope you don't mind I haven't done my hair yet and I'm not wearing my corset yet. It's your fault though, waking me up so early. And those corsets are absolutely dreathful. If you ever wanna not breath, wear a corset," she said and quickly added,"don't tell my mom though," 

"No, it's okay, I don't see the point in them anyway. It's Azula who always makes such commotion about them," he sighed. 

"That sounds like Azula," she agreed as she sat down in front of the mirror and took her brush. It smoothly went through her hair like butter. "So what do you need?"

"Well, I just have this problem I guess, not that it's a problem, I just-..." He trailed off. What was the problem exactly? Did he even know himself? 

"Is it about the boy?" Mai looked to him, but not suprised. 

"Well, I guess, I mean, you see, I can't really talk to him right? He's third class and you know my dad and well," he ran with his fingers through his hair. 

"You like him, don't you?" Mai said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

"What? What do you mean with like?" He hadn't even considered it. Could it be possibly that? Honestly, what did Zuko know of all of this? 

"You know, like as in how we're supposed to like like eachother, I saw how you were watching him the other day and well," she said. Well, if Mai thought it was that, at least there was no problem anymore in admitting to her that he might probably was homosexual. She didn't even seem mad about it, or judging, she even looked as if she was happy that way. 

"You think I'm h-..." He gestured with his hands looking all confused. 

"Well yea, possibly, and it's okay Zuko, I've told you, I don't even fall in love anyway and honestly," honestly, Zuko had no idea what to think off all this. Of what Mai all had said. He felt drawn to the other man, yes, but did that mean he liked Sokka like Mai said? "- honestly, I couldn't care less, people like who they like, no shame in that I guess."

Mai still had the same face expression as usual, and her still still sounded bored and uninterested. You'd think this conversation with your fiancée would at least give you the slightstest of emotion, but apparently not. Sometimes, she'd crack the tiniest smile, but no more than that. 

"What do you think I should do?" He asked, as she seemed to be the one with the great advice lately anyway. Well, sort of. It's not like he had asked anyone's advice so he couldn't really say how good the others were but well, seeing the conversation, they probably wouldn't be extremely good. 

"I think you should go talk to him," she said. Her hair was all pinned up now, in the regular way. You could clearly see when a maid had done it and when she did it herself. With herself, her hair was still a bit poofy and looked actually kinda cute and always the same: two buns on the sides of her head and two stands of hair on each side hanging out of them. But when a maid did it, it was all strongly pulled to the back in one big, special bun. It almost made her seem unreal, like she head no hair and her face was pulled to the back too or something. 

"Well, that's kind of the problem, I just told him we couldn't speak anymore, you know because of my dad and all, he didn't take it too bad I guess, he was very short though" he explained. 

"I think you should stand up to your dad too. You're 18, you can do what you want, you don't have to live by his rules forever," she went into her bedroom and came back with two almost identical dressed, simular to the ones she always wore- black with long sleeves. One had a red lining and the other one blue. "Left or right?" She asked, as if they were having the most usual conversation ever. How did she suddenly get all this about standing up for things even? It's not like she stood up against het parents forcing her to marry, right? If his mom would have been here, this would probably be a million times easier, she'd say what to do. No, wait, if she were here, she wouldn't let his father marry him off probably. There would have been no problem at all really. 

"Left," he said, because the one with red was nicer in his opinion, before thinking about what she said a few seconds ago. Could he really abandon his family? He'd never honour his family, and Azula would get even more credit as the kid who didn't basically run off, and all the years of trying to get some respect out of his dad would be gone, right when he almost had it. Could he really do that? It almost made him angry to think about the fact that his sister would always be the best and most important of the family and he'd never even bring proud to them. But then again, would marrying really make a difference? Azula would always be the lucky one, right? "But how would I ever honour them? Where would I live? Where would I get money?" He asked anyway. 

"Live a little, you'll find your way, your friend gets by without money too, right? And honour, honestly, honour is less important than happiness, no? " Who knew he could have such a deep conversation with this girl? And seeing as how Sokka had to live- with four people in a room? - he wasn't quite sure if he really wanted this all so badly. "What is his name anyway?"

"Sokka," Zuko smiled. He literally smiled by saying his name. Okay, maybe Mai was right... Maybe smiling when saying a name is a clear enough sign. 

"You know what you should do? Ask your dad if Sokka can join dinner tomorrownight. Ask during breakfast and I'll help him say okay," she went back into her room to get a bag to match the black dress, even though all her bags were black and all her dresses were black so how hard could that be? She came back with about three bags and showed them all in front of the mirror once, later deciding on #2

"Would you really do that?" Zuko was still pretty confused. 

"Sure, after all, if you run off, I don't have to get married. No offence," Mai said dryly. 

Normally, Zuko would be offenced, mad even maybe, but the strange thing was, he wasn't. "None taken, but I thought your family needed money? How are you gonna bring that to them without me?"

For at least 0.1 seconds she cracked a small smile. "I'm a smart girl, I'll think of something."


	5. Chapter 5

They were planning on having breakfast all four together and Zuko would ask his father if Sokka was permitted join dinner that night, he just wasn't fully sure how.  
No way his dad would let a third class passenger eat with them, right? His father always said there are two important things in life: money and power, and from what Zuko knew, Sokka had neither of that. The older boy started realizing more and more that his father might not be right about everything in life, which made him even more confussed. 

He tried to look as nice as possible, wearing his best suit and trying to tame his hair properly, because he knew how hard it was to impress his father, and he really needed it today. All he could do was hope Mai had a plan, or at least a backup to help. 

While walking to towards the grand staircase, which leaded into a big hall with fancy chairs and tables where they would eat most of their meals, he of course ran into his sister. She always had terrible timings to run into Zuko. He had almost forgotten she was there too, and she'd probably wouldn't be very happy about the proposal asking for Sokka to join them either. She was so alike with their father. 

She made some sharp comments, said some stuff about how their dad wasn't very happy about him yesterday and said they didn't expect much from Zuko anyway. The usual, some good letting down and all that, typical for Azula. He was used to it, he wouldn't let it go to his head. Luckily, when they entered, Mai was there already so he didn't have to spend so much time alone with his sister anymore, and a few minutes later, his father joined too. He was always last for some reason. 

After ten minutes, Zuko still couldn't ask. He had tried it in his head for a million times to be honest but he just didn't see the right moment. He looked uncomfortably towards Mai who grinned and suddenly, she started to speak. "When Zuko and I were wandering up on deck yesterday, we met an extraordinary guy, he's third class but he really had so many stories to tell, it's fascinating," she said, towards Ozai and Azula. 

The two looked with the biggest eyes ever towards the two 'lovers' and Zuko really didn't see where her plan is going. Azula grinned. She probably thought something like 'this is gonna be good', knowing her. 

"Are you serious? A third class peasant? Ha, you're making me laugh, Mai," Azula laughed sharply, and Ozai joined her. Zuko shivered when his sister said the word 'peasant', she said it in such a tone only his sister could, and it came out so coldly, almost as if she was talking about a caged animal in stead of an actual human. 

"No really, he isn't like the other... Third class people," Zuko tried to sound as natural as possible. Maybe they should have planned this out a tiny bit better. 

"Could he maybe join us for dinner tonight, Sir?" Mai asked towards the boy's father, and she recieved a rising eyebrow. 

"What?" He asked, making sure he had heard it right. 

"I'd really like that a lot, sir, he has really awesome tales to tell like I said and I bet you'd love to hear them too," well, maybe Mai could handle this. Of course his father wouldn't listen to him for this, but perhaps to Mai he would. 

"Well perhaps, if you really want to, Mai... I honeslty don't understand why but..." Ozai said still in an unsure and laughable voice. Zuko couldn't believe it to be very honest. 

"Zuko honey, can you be a dear and invite Sokka over, I'd do it but I have such a headache," Mai said, of course the boy knew this wasn't true, but she really did think of everything. Not only the fact that he could come, she also een thought about how to get Zuko to invite him, because obviously, Mai herself had no clue what he looked like as she had only seen him on deck from a far distance. 

"You can be excused," his father said, to another big suprise of Zuko, and the grin from Azula's face had melted into a genuinely weird look towards the sibling's father. 

"Uhm, okay thank you father, I'll say dinner is at our unual hour," he said and quickly stood up, nodding quickly towards Mai and leaving the room. 

So the biggest problem was solved thanks so his fiancée, now he only had to think about how he would ask Sokka after he had said yesterday to not talk to eachother. And then he realised, he barely knew anything about the guy and the guy knew about the exact same about Zuko. 

Honestly, it all went so quickly for the boy, it just felt so weird.  
Everyone said this boat was unsinkable, and of course Zuko didn't believe that at all, but if you'd tell him now this boat had some weird sort of power to make everyone's life more confussing, he'd probably would believe that. 

 

From first class deck, he looked down upon the third class deck, because it was probably easier to spot someone from a hight then from the deck itself. After a few minutes, he didn't spot Sokka, but he did notice the smaller tanned girl who he had met briefly before. 

He ran up to Katara not even quite sure what to say, which made him feel kinda awkward. 

"Excuse me, miss Katara, I'm sort of looking for your brother," he said as he approached the girl sitting alone on a bench, sketching a bit in her sketchbook. 

"What? Why?" She looked up. Honestly, Katara's look was pretty scary, she also looked like a quite strong girl who could easily snap your neck. 

"I-... I've came to invite him to dinner with us," he said, standing up straight. 

"What? Is this some sort of mind trick you're playing on him? I thought you didn't wanna see him anymore?" She closed her sketchbook and stood up, looking him right in te eyes now. 

"No, no, not at all, I just-..."

"Lemme say this, my brother might not be the brightest of the family, please don't tell him I said that by the way, but he'll notice if you're trying to do something, alright?" 

 

Just as Zuko was about to say something, a familiar voice came in their direction. "Hey Katara I-... Oh I didn't expect to see you here, I thought the rule applied to third class in general, I didn't know my sister was an exception," he said, but he didn't look as offended or scary as Katara, he actually even kinda laughed, but then again, Katara looked so damn scary. 

"Well, I've came here to invite you for dinner tonight," the taller boy repeated himself, trying to stand up straight like the first time, but he felt kinda scared. 

"What? Me? To dinner? I thought-..." 

"You know what? I better leave you two alone because I really don't understand, but Sokka, take care okay," Katara stood up, took her book and pencil and left, leaving a last mean look at Zuko. 

"Look, I'll explain, my fiancée saw how we were talking the other day sort off and she said I should invite you to dinner but I mean, my dad would never approve because he's-... Anyway Mai, my fiancée, came up with a sort of plan and she actually got you in because my dad does listen to her," he began, staring at the ground and put his hand in his neck. Honestly, he couldn't meet the other boy's eyes right now. 

"Your fiancée really seems to like me, even though I don't know her," Sokka laughed. 

"She just seems to think I like you a lot," he said quietly. 

"Is that so?" Sokka grinned widely. 

"Will you just come to dinner or not? Preferably be there at 7 PM, somewhere near the grand staircase," Zuko rolled with his eyes. Like he was gonna answer that question. 

"Sure, who will be there then?" Sokka grinned again. 

"Well, me, my fiancée Mai, my father and sister. Maybe some other rich, ignorant snobs," the taller boy had said before even realizing what he was saying. It really wasn't right he was saying all of this towards the other person, and yet... "I mean sometimes there are some nice rich people too, like Margaret Brown, we call her Maggie brown, well I call her that, my sister and father don't like her that much, but well-... It doesn't matter, what do you say?"

"Count me in. But then I think I better leave and get ready, I only have 8hours left before I get to meet those rich, ignorant snobs and possibly Maggie Brown, to use your words," Sokka laughed. His laugh was so wide and genuinely happy, it made Zuko himself happy too. And he hated it. He hated the fact that this guy he barely knew made him happy, because it didn't make any sense. 

"Oh and another thing, Mai may have thrown out there that you have great tales to tell about your... Life and all that, think you can tell some tonight? They don't have to be real, you can find something out if you like, just you know, for my father," 

"I might have a few adventures to tell about, you'd be impressed," he smiled and waved before walking away. Why would Sokka even wanna come? It obviously wasn't gonna be fun for him? Zuko honesly didn't understand the boy at all, and maybe, that's why he was so drawn to him, curiosity and lack knowledge about the life of someone who probably has had way more extroardinary things happening in his life than Zuko himself. 

He was pretty nervous the whole time before the dinner, remembering the boy probably didn't have a suit and his father probably won't appreciate that, and now he thought about it, how would he ever get to first class without suit? And he knew Azula would ask some stuff to Mai about him or something because Azula just is like that so he told Mai the "basics" (that he's travelling with his sister and all that) before Zuko himself realized he knew no more than the basics himself. What did he actually know about the guy? 

 

6:40PM. Zuko and Mai were already at the foot of the staircase, mostly because Zuko had pushed her to go that early and because his father only found it normal the boy was there before him and his sister, so they wouldn't have to way for us. There also was a big clock in front of them, and it was absolutely beautiful. This whole ship was beautiful to be honest, way more beautiful than the last one he had been on, even though he didn't expect it. 

"So, what's your plan?" Mai asked. She wore a dark red dress for once, And her hair was fully and properly pulled to the back, even the straigh bangs that sometimes hung in her eyes were gone, even though Zuko liked them more than this hairstyle. 

He looked up, nervously, why even? It was Mai's plan so he wouldn't get in trouble himself if Sokka did something 'wrong' and he wasn't sure what think about the boy anyways. "Plan?"

"You do have a plan right?" She rolled her eyes. 

He looked up, "a plan for what?"

"Oh I don't know, maybe some crazy absurt plan so you can both can sneak to your room after dinner, or take a walk on deck or whatever?" She said with sarcasm in her voice, like it was obvious.

"Why-... I wasn't planning on doing that in the first place..." Zuko trailed off. 

"I need to think about everything don't I?" She said, and after that, she explained her plan, a plan that could not possibly go wrong, a plan where Sokka would be in the taller boy's actual bedroom to 'talk' as she'd say, but Zuko didn't know if he really wanted to. Perhaps, just talking won't kill him? This was a terrible idea, he decided. 

"I don't really-..."

"Give it some time Zuko," she said, almost in a warm voice. 

"Why are you even doing this for me? I'm supposed to marry you, Mai, and you're honestly putting more work into 'getting a boy for me', to call it like that, than our actual wedding. He wasn't quite sure yet what he was gonna do. 

"Zuko, we've been over this!" She said. 

At that moment, the younger boy with the piercing blue eyes walked down the stair. "Zuko," he did a little bow, "And you must be Mai," he took her hand and gave it a kiss. Both Zuko and Mai were staring at the boy with big eyes. He wore a proper suit, his hair was nicely combed backwards and not into a ponytail like usual, he had great manners, and honestly, Zuko didn't expect it. Not because the boy looked dirty and poor otherwise, he just wasn't quite sure how he suddenly got the fancy, expensive suit and all that. 

"W- Where did you get the suite?" Was all he could bring out. 

"A nice lady helped me, it's a rather long story," he grinned. "Don't worry though, she said she wouldn't tell anyone or something."

"That's g-good," Zuko said, still kind of in shock. He also noticed how cute and soft Sokka's hair looked when it was down. 

"Aaah, the steerage passenger is here already," Azula's voice was suddenly heard from behind them. Of course Azula wasn't gonna react greatly on Sokka. Zuko wondered if Sokka found it offensive Azula called him 'steerage passenger', but he probably did. "I must say, you could have looked a lot worse." That was almost a compliment in Azula's norms. Almost. 

"Ah, you must be Zuko's sister, Mai's told me all about you," he said, not saying 'Zuko told me all about you' and not saying her actual name because he probably didn't know it. Sokka was a great charmer, even when he was lying. 

"Woaw, it sounds like Mai's developing feelings for someone else to me. Watch out, Zuko, you'll lose her to the poor guy," she grinned, but she said it quite enough in her brother's ear so only he could hear it, which he almost considered as something good. Oh, if she only knew, was all he could think of. 

Shortly after, their father arrived too, looking pretty impressed at the younger boy. To be fair, he looked pretty impressive and rich in that suit. But Zuko also knew Ozai knew Sokka wasn't rich, and it was pretty clear on the face he made when Sokka turned away. 

"Shall we go then?" Zuko said, awkwardly, trying to at least get them to sit down. 

"Sure," Sokka said, "can I accompanion you to your seat?" He said towards Azula, to everyone's great suprise. He was really trying so hard, it was honestly adorable, and Zuko wondered for the millionth time why he was even doing this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to clarify that Margaret 'Maggie' Brown is 'the Unsinkable Molly Brown', but during her life time no one actually called her Molly so... Anyways I hope you enjoyed :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter sort of contains a tiny spoiler of the book/movie/musical Les Misérables but I mean you shouldn't get into Les Mis unprepared to be honest because you'll cry your eyes out even more but still I'm sorry. It's nothig major though, Les Mis just kind of slipped in because I'm used to writing fanficts for that fandom more but again nothing major.

"So Sokka, is it?"

"Yes, ma'am," you could see in the smaller boy's eyes he was unsure and wasn't fully sure how to call her.

"How did you meet my brother and Mai?" Azula asked while grinning at the tanned boy. She was clearly planning on something, Zuko wasn't just fully sure what she wanted to find out. If they'd lied? Why would they do that? Okay maybe they lied a tiny bit, but no way Azula would notice that, right? 

"I met them on deck once, I can't fully remember when, I'm pretty bad with remembering dates and certainly hours," he laughed. Well, that kind of went with the lie Mai told their father earlier. He wasn't quite sure why Sokka was even lying, it's not like it would change anything at all for him, he wouldn't get in trouble, the taller boy would. 

"So were you on first class deck or were our lovely Zuko and Mai here on third class deck?" Here it was. He knew Azula would ask every tiny detail, and this was actually a pretty big detail. If Sokka said he was on first deck, his sister would say it's inappropriate, that he should have been, and his father would probably say something like 'those rats should know their place in society' but if Sokka said Mai and Zuko were on third, his sister would probably laugh and Ozai wouldn't be very happy, not at all. 

But the fact is that they had made it look more like it was Mai's friend and Zuko just kind of got dragged into it, and Zuko wasn't quite sure why Azula would want to make Mai look bad in front of her father, after all, it was his father who had decided that Zuko had to marry her, not him. 

"I was on the first, but with a really good reason, believe me," he tried to defend himself. The rich boy could almost hear his father sigh in annoyance. "You see, my sister, Katara, was on first for a reason, and I went there too to tell her off, to tell her that she was crazy, because obviously she shouldn't have been there, and they I accidentally ran into Mai an Zuko," 

"Say, do you start talking to everyone who walkes into you?" She asked towards the boy and girl, who were kind of suprised with Sokka's answer. Really, WHY was he doing this all? He didn't really know Zuko's father would kill him if he started talking himself to a third class passanger, right? And he could get into great trouble admitting he was on a deck he should not have been on...

"No, Mademoiselle, Monsieur," Sokka suddenly replied for them towards Azula and Ozai. Was that French? "You see, I apologized of course, but then they demanded me why I was there. I said it was because of my sister and Zuko here said it was good, unlike my sister, I knew my place, because you see, I do know my place I really do, and then I kind of accidentally started telling a story about when I was in Paris, because there was this one time, very alike to this one, it's a real long story I won't bother you with it..." He said so sure, why was he even so good at lying? And then he added, "I know it's sort of inappropriate and that I shouldn't have but that's sort of how we started talking for a while? It's all my fault really."

The taller boy was amazed. He hadn't even really told Sokka he lied and what he had told his father, and yet, what he said was so good, there were barely any wholes in the story. How was that even possible? This made Zuko decide he'd use Mai's 'plan' because he had some questions, and he possibly started to realize he just got sort of attracted to the guy quite a lot. 

"Yes, it is. Of course my brother and his fiancée shouldn't talk to gutter rats and just tell you off, but okay," she said, more to herself than towards the table.   
"Azula... We think that stuff, we don't say it out loud," Ozai said. He might didn't like the third class passenger sitting at their table, but as a wealthy gentleman, he at least had some manners. And of course the fact that, if he became more successful thanks to Mai's family, he'd probably have to do some charity work to get more attention from the press, this was like a sort of preperation, righ?   
Then Zuko had a perfectly marvelous idea to keep contact after the ship docked; Ozai could use Sokka as his charity to attrack press! Sokka and his family would get some money, Ozai would get some good paperarticles, everyone happy!

Only a few seconds later Zuko realized it would probably be pretty offensive for the smaller boy who made clear he didn't need money and his father would probably say that helping only one person won't do you much good in newspapers, you need to help a whole lot of people. Too bad his father hated people, and certainly poor people. 

"Don't worry about it sir, I'm used to it, I mean I am poor, no denying in that. But you know what? Sometimes it's nice to be a gutter rat, you know? I know some places, I see places, I know some people, I see people," Sokka started with a grin. The taller boy was sure he was about so say something else after, about his life and about how he didn't need money, but he kept it in. And Zuko was glad, because to his dad, money was the answer to everything. Money and honor, pride, greatness. Zuko wondered how it would be like to live with less money to be honest. 

"Ah yes, lots of seeing and knowing. I see and know a lot too. You see, I see that vase there. I know that vase is blue with a floral print. You don't have to be poor to see and know," Azula said again, poking in the food that the waiters had just brought, with a wicked smile. 

"Azula, enough, we'll talk later about... This..." their father said. Zuko knew 'this' was not Azula's behaviour but more about the boy Mai and he had invited. 

"Care to share some more stories with us, Sokka?" Mai said before anyone could get actually hurt by Azula's eyes. Ah yes, savoir Mai to the rescue. 

"Yes, but my seeing is sort of different from your seeing, you see, I've been to Paris like I've said before, and you know how they say there are exactly four people on this earth who are not quite much like any one else? One that can bend earth, one can bend water, one air and one fire. I know many people think it's a legend, that many people don't believe it because the four have not been found yet this generation, but I've happened to meet earthbender in a local pub, I sweat to God. It's a rather small girl, no older than twelve at the time, and not only that, she's blind too but she could totally defeat anyone by hand in a second, oh I'd love to tell you some more about her she's absolutely one of the bravest people I know, but I sort of promised I wouldn't. You see, I saw the earthbender. I know the earthbender. Not only that, I've met three of the benders before, but I won't go into detail, only the firebender is still a mystery to me..." He grinned. Zuko went pale. The last time he had heard about the four benders, he had been no older than seven, and his mom had told him a great secret about them he'd never could tell anyone about. He couldn't show his dad he suddenly felt like he was gonna faint so he tried to breath normally and sit up, doing his best to not get a panick attack. 

 

"Oh come on, those benderstories aren't real!" Azula said as she put some of her chicken in her mouth. "They haven't been found yet for a reason, if you turn them in you can get a great deal of money, they're a danger to this society! And even if they would be, no way you can meet three of them and not even turn one in! Not only would that also be extremely foolish, seeing as you are quite a poor person."

"Maybe some people don't find their comfort in money," Mai suddenly said and tried to defend Sokka. Really, both Mai and Sokka were doing such a lot for Zuko while he himself had not defend either one of them. Not that he could right now, he was trying his hardest to not puke from the sudden overwhelming stress. If he just could forget about it again- the thing he had been blocking out of his head for years. 

"Oh please," Ozai let out, not really loud though, but he was pretty clear he was not of that opinion. 

"No really, they're my friend and I'm not going to turn them in so they can put them in some sort of cage so they can be 'save' from their special TALENTS, how many people so you know who can start a tornado? Or bui-"

"Sokka," Zuko firmly placed his hand on the boy's shoulder and shook his head. This had to stop, but he felt really bad about shutting the smaller boy's mouth just like that so he mouthed a small sorry when Ozai and Azula weren't looking. Sokka shook his head understandingly, he probably realized too he shouldn't start a fight at the table because Zuko and Mai could get in trouble. 

After that, it was silence for a few seconds before Mai started another conversation, whereby Sokka did tell stories, without upsetting anyone, about how he used to go ice fishing in Wisconsin, and how he had seen the Statue of Liberty about a million times. 

After everyone had finished their dessert, Mai started talking again. "I'm really tired, I think I should get back to my cabin... Zuko, are you coming too?"

"I think me and Azula will take a walk on deck for an hour or so," Ozai cut in, right before standing up together with the taller boy's sister.

Mai, Zuko and Sokka stood up too now.   
"Thanks for coming, Sokka, it's been a pleasure" Mai said.   
"Yea," Zuko agreed, shaking the othet boy's hand, slipping a smaller paper in the other guy's hand. 

'Come to my room in 10 minutes. Make sure my father won't see, I'm sorry. It's room 14A'

Zuko hadn't even written it himself, Mai had. Of course she had, she had thought about everything, and they boy's handwriting was pretty sloppy, most of the time he couldn't eve read it himself. 

"Thank you, for you know, basically everything," Zuko told Mai once they were in the hallway alone. 

"You did give him the paper, right?" She asked, like it was all she cared about. 

"Yea I did, but that doesn't mean he will come, I mean, for me, I certainly wouldn't..."

There were a few seconds of silence before Mai changed the subject, well sort off. "Do you thing he was telling the truth?"

"About what?" 

"The benders. I think it's rather hard to believe that one would just live in Paris and no one would have ever noticed before," Mai said and added, "but why would you make something like that up? It doesn't seem like him, well, not that I know him but I noticed he didn't look like he was lying..." 

Right, that. "It's not because no one had turned her in no one had noticed her, maybe the Parisians are just very friendly people, I don't know much about the people of Paris though, only that they revolutions a bit too much," he tried to laugh and change the subject. "Like, have you read that book by Victor Hugo? The Les Misérables one? The second part is about the june rebellion which is sort of like the revolution, only it failed after like a few days. Okay it's nothing like the French Revolution, but still, it's a really good book I-..." 

"Zuko, you're talking way too fast okay," Mai said. Zuko used to talk really fast when he was younger and got nervous, but now he'd never talked 'too fast', he was trained in talking slowly, but sometimes in occasions like these, he'd slip in talking very fast again. 

"I'm sorry," he said. 

"But to answer the question, I have read the book, yes. I thought it was rather good, especially the Marius part, my favourite character is definitely that Grantaire dude, the cynical one that doesn't really believe in anything but in Enjolras," Mai said. Lately, Zuko almost didn't hear the boredom in her voice anymore, but it still was there to be honest. Even when she was helping him, defending either Zuko or Sokka, her voice was still dull. 

"Yea, Grantaire and Enjolras are so i-..." He stopped himself. He wasn't even gonna begin about it to be honest. It's when he read it, he almost cried - he normally never cries- at the 'Permet-tu?' Part and the dying hand in hand was just too much but it was crazy that he actually saw some kind of love story between the cynical creature and the revolutionary leader that wasn't there in the first place. And it didn't matter, because they had just arrived at their rooms anyway. 

"They're what? So in love? Grantaire was no doubt, I read that too. Probably the only thing that's different between me and 'Aire, but you know, like the book says, No one loves the light like a blind man," she said. "Goodnight Zuko, good luck." 

5 minutes had passed since they left, and the paper requested Sokka to be there in 10 minutes, so technically 5 from now. And Zuko was stressing like crazy for some reason, because if he was the guy, he honestly wouldn't come at all, but he certainly hoped he would. 

The started walking circles in his room, slowly putting his hair back as usual. And suddenly, there was a knock on the door and a grinning Sokka in front of it. "Hey."


	7. Chapter 7

"I'm so glad you came!" Zuko said almost right away, pulling the guy inside so no one in the hallway would notice (not that there were people in the hallway right now but still) and shutting the door after him. 

"Woaw, easy there, tiger," Sokka lauged and added, "why wouldn't I have come? The small paper told me to come, right?" 

"Yes but still, the dinner was- I mean I don't even understand why Mai- why you- why did- I don't even-..." Zuko couldn't even bring out real words at the moment, he had just way too many questions to ask. Hell, he didn't even understand why Mai was doing all of this in the first place, leave alone Sokka, a guy he barely knew. Maybe, just MAYBE, Zuko was in fact attracted to him if you want to label it so badly, but no way Sokka felt the same, right? It's absurd even, Sokka was a guy for God's sake, Zuko shouldn't feel this way at all, even though he had known for longer he wasn't actually into girls, his father would absolutely kill him. 

"Okay, please try to make full sentences if you want me to answer you, I can't really figure out what you're trying yo say," the guy grinned again. It was almost like there was a permanent grin on his face, but not like Azula's, which even looked wicked and evil, okay maybe that's a bit exaggerated, but still, and Sokka's was more friendly-ish, more as if he was just amuzed by everything around him. 

"Why did you come to dinner? It was an aweful plan to invite you, I should have known... Not that it's your fault, my sister and dad were just so-," why couldn't Zuko just oppress it all? He managed to do it before perfectly fine. 

"Hey, it wasn't terrible okay? I actually quite enjoyed it. It's been a long time since so many people were interested of what I had to say. Well sort off. Okay they were a bit mean sometimes, but believe me, I can deal with that just perfectly fine. And besides, I'm so glad I got to eat proper meat, you know how expensive that stuff is?" Sokka laughed, but he clearly meant what he said. About the meat at least. 

Zuko wondered why the guy was so obsessed with meats in the first place, but he had never actually thought about the price of anything before in his life.   
He wondered if he could live without money, probably not, but then again, he didn't need to wear suits to feel good, he didn't quite like the taste of fancy stuff like champane and oysters anyway and he surely didn't need any maids to do the work he could perfectly do himself. 

"Why did you lie to my father and sister? And how did you know what to tell?" Zuko wondered out loud. 

"After seeing and hearing your dad, I figured he wouldn't be happy with the real story, so I just sort of twisted reality a tiny bit. Also Mai shot me some eyes that were really one of those 'don't tell the truth'-looks, if that's even a thing. I kinda shoveled everything on Mai though, but I figured your dad wouldn't be mad at her, he needs something from het after all," he said. The taller boy still couldn't believe how natural it all was to Sokka, as if he was trained in lying and figuring out people. 

"What's it like... To be... To not have a lot of money?" He realized that question probably would be quite offensive surely if he would say 'to be poor', but he noticed Sokka was a rather outgoing person on this stuff. 

"Why don't you try it?" He said, without his usual grin on his face, looking straight into Zuko's eye. He came a few steps closer to Zuko. 

"What?" The rich boy said. How would he even do that? 'Here dad, keep your money, I'll try to live without'?

"Do you like your life? Do you want to get married? Do you want to honour your family more than anything in the world?" The guy said. Normally, Zuko'd get offended and tell him it's a rude question, but he thought about it for a few minutes anyways. Those probably were good questions. 

"I-I don't know I mean... Mai is really awesome, there's just no future for us I mean she's... And I don't like g-... I don't like the idea of marriage," Zuko hold himself in. Probably one way to scare someone away is to tell them you like boys more than girls. "And I mean, I've lived like this my whole life, I'm not sure if I like it more than I'd like it if I weren't living this life, and it's just with my sister and... Father's always proud of her, I want him to be proud of me too, you know?" 

"Come with us," Sokka inched closer to Zuko. Still looking deadserious. 

"What? Don't be absurd, I can't-..." He thought about the consequences. If Mai weren't to get married to him, she'd probably get in trouble too in her family, and his father, well, he obviously could never return to him in that case. 

"Why not? You don't have to return to your father, really, how he treats you, you don't need him, we'll be your family. My sister and me, we can-..." His tone faded out near the end of the sentence and he coughed once, pulling himself up straight. They were so close to eachoter now, if Zuko only came a tiny bit closer and put his mouth on the younger boy's... But he knew he couldn't, he knew it wouldn't be acceptable and that he'd probably scare the boy away. All though, Sokka was the one to come that close in the first place right? Sokka added, "I know it would probably be terrible for Mai, but I'm quite sure she's okay with this. She's the one to pushed you, right? Believe me, I know her type of people, she know what she's doing, maybe a bit too much even."

"Sokka, I don't think I can-..." Zuko didn't know what to say at all. To be honest, he hadn't seen much of the 'real' world outside of the fancy parties he always got dragged to, and after all, he knew Sokka for what? Three days? But somehow it seemed so right even though it shouldn't. 

"I know, I'm sorry, I-... Just forget it," he said, looking down and taking a few steps back. He walked towards a painting on the wall now,one of an artist Zuko didn't really know but he did really like the painting. 

"Do you really travel a lot?" Zuko decided to ask. He actually kind of wanted to see the world and see it's wonders, but it couldn't be all happy places right? The world was a cruel place as far as he knew. 

"I've been to enough countries, you know, Germany, France, Belgium, that stuff, but never really long. It's always with my sister, and she misses GranGran quite a lot quite quickly. I should probably clarify that GranGran is what we call our grandmother," he laughed. 

"Is it nice, those countries?" Zuko too looked at the painting now. 

"Ah you know, many different cultures, and at the same time not. The Europeans are different from the Americans, you know? You probably know, you've been to both Europe and America," Sokka laughed nervously for some reason. "But still, I mean all the countries are different and they speak different languages but they're still more alike than Europe and America."

"Do you speak a lot of languages?" Zuko himself could speak a tiny bit of French, not much though. He's got a few classes when he was fourteen, but his father didn't like his teacher so he sent him away. 

"I know a bit of German and speak pretty fluently French. I try to learn Dutch, but it's just too simular with German and at the same time totally not," he laughed. Zuko had heard German, and he had heard Dutch, and it did seem quite familiar to eachother to be honest. 

"Did you learn it yourself?" The taller boy couldn't imagine teaching himself a language, it's just not something you learn in three seconds, and without books or anything?

"I try. GranGran helped me with French though, to get the writing right."

After a few seconds of silence, Zuko decided to ask something about the thing he had remembered from dinner. "Did you lie earlier or is it real?" 

"What?" Sokka looked up from the painting. 

"The thing about the benders. Have you met the oth- three? Are the myths real?" Zuko probably shouldn't tell the guy his secret he had been keeping from the world for over 10 years, but if he really know the other three, what could possibly the harm? 

Why did he trust the guy so much even? The richer boy usually never trusted people, surely not so quickly. These were the times he really wished he saw his uncle more often, or that he was there at the moment even. His uncle had great advice most of the time, even though Zuko wouldn't always accept it. 

"Why would I lie about that?" The tanned boy grinned. "I probably shouldn't have started about it though..."

"I don't know, could you... Could you say something more about them? Can you tell me some tales?" Let's first see how Sokka acts with that. 

"look, I normally don't talk about them because most people would turn them in, but I have this weird vibe that I can trust you so..." He looked down and blushed, "the earthbender is a twelve year old girl named Toph. She's blind and I met her last summer. She's really funny and brave to be honest. She can take a strong young man with her hands to be honest. The airbender is also a twelve year old boy who lives in a sort of commune but like the kind you have no trouble with. I met Aang because GranGran knows one of the 'leaders' and stuff like that, so I see him from time to time. I've met him for the first time two years ago or something, and the waterbender..." 

He stopped, something kept him in. It was clear the waterbender wasn't like the other two for him. 

"Do you promise me you won't tell anyone?" He asked after a few seconds. 

"Who would I even tell?" Zuko laughed but the younger boy didn't seem so impressed, "I promise."

"The waterbender is my sister, Katara. That's also a reason why were going back to America, England wasn't just that safe anymore," he looked up, right in Zuko's eyes. 

Well... Here it goes. "You're pretty lucky, I think you're one of the only people on earth who is friends with all the four element benders..." 

"What do you mean? I-I only know three of them... Not four..." Sokka said with big eyes and a confussed look. 

"Yea well... Don't- don't tell anyone but..." Zuko hold his hand in front of him and concentrated on pushing all the energy in his body towards his hand. Suddenly, a small, not-so-hot flame rested a few centimetres above his righthand, but he couldn't hold it for more than a few seconds, in which Sokka looked super amazed at him. 

When he was no older than seven, his mom and he were in the park and his mom was reading a book as Zuko was playing with a box of matches he had found. No one had really told him he should not play with fire and of course the boy didn't understand the concept of it back then and didn't realize it could burn you pretty badly, but he did understand it wasn't a great thing when the grass suddenly caught fire. He tried his best to stop the growing flames it with blowing on it, until suddenly, he felt like, that if he could concentrate really well on the fire, he could control it. It was almost like an inner call from his soul to stop the flames. And so, suddenly it stopped, the fire didn't move unless Zuko wanted it to, he could make it smaller and bigger, and the young boy certainly was amazed at his new found talent. 'Mom, look what I can do!' He had said, but his mom only replied with 'Zuko, are you-... Can you place make the fire stop darling?' And explained to him that he had a gift, explained a bit over the four elements and that it's really all about inner energy, and said that he should never tell anyone, certainly not his father, that he probably shouldn't not practice it and just ignore it, that his father would abuse the talent the boy had. He was kind of mad at first, but he understood his mother probably was right, so he blocked it out, certainly after she died it never even crossed his mind to do it once again. 

And yet here he was, telling some random stranger about his bending and even showing it to him, he could easily accidentally set the ship on fire or something, no idea how to cover that up, but, after all, the boy didn't seem to care about the reward he'd get if he turned him in anyway and they could say they accidentally knocked over a candle or something. 

"You're the firebender?" Sokka said, still pretty confussed, and looking amazed at him at the same time. 

"I've only done it twice up till now and the last time was when I was seven so I wouldn't necessarily say I'm good at it or anything, but I guess so..." 

"I think you should practice it more often, it could really help out in some situations I can imagine," Sokka said, now looking a bit normal again. 

"I can't... You're the only person in the world who knows about this actually..." The taller boy said and blushed. He probably shouldn't have said that, who tells a stanger he has known for three days his biggest secret? 

"Please try it again? I bet it will go way better than the first time already. Zuko, I'd be such a shame if this gift goes to lost! Look, I know the three others, right? They haven't been caught either, my sister practices almost every day..." He said. 

"Yea but I mean, I can burn whole cities down if something goes wrong. We-... I shouldn't play with fire, Sokka," he said and looked away. He could only imagine doing something wrong and putting his whole room on fire. 

"Please try it once more? Just once?" Sokka asked with huge eyes, which were quite impossible to say no to. "I should probably mention I'm a tiny bit scared of fire though, so if you could kindly stay a metre away from me with that thing, that'd be awesome," he laughed, until he saw the worried look on Zuko's face. "Just kidding, well not about the scared thing though."

"Fine," Zuko rolled his eyes and tried again. Slowly breathing in and out and concentrating on the energy in his body. A larger flame rested in his hand now, but it was calmer. If he could just... He slowly moved the flame from hand to hand, trying to keep it under control, until suddenly a loud metalic sound was heard through the whole ship, and everything started trembling. The flame disappeared right away, and the two boys almost fell to the ground. The trembling kept going for a while, well certainly way too long for just 'nothing'. 

"What was that?" Sokka asked as they tried to stand up. He tried to sound like normal, but the taller boy could clearly hear a scared crack in his voice. 

"I don't know, but it didn't sound very good I mean, I've been on plenty ships but... Do you want to go look upon deck or ask someone or something?" He said, walking to the window, trying to get a glimps of something, he just wasn't quite sure yet what. 

"Yea..." The guy said, still looking a tiny bit scared. 

Zuko knew the master builder of the ship, well at least, his father did. He had had a few dinners with mr. Andrews and the guy was friendly enough to Zuko, he perhaps could ask him, he would know what was up. 

The older boy went out of the door first, making sure his father or sister wouldn't be there and Sokka followed. Whatever this was, it couldn't be good. He didn't quite sure what to say if he ran into his father with Sokka, but he just had to know what this was. The only problem was that his sister and father went for a promenade up on deck a bit earlier, but perhaps they were already back in the room and after all, a loud metalic crack and a lot of rembling can never be good when you're on a boat and could make it all worse even. 

Up on deck, all he saw was a deck covered with big clumps of ice, and a few people, mostly third class passengers, playing football with them. It was extremely cold, even though Zuko was still wearing his coat, the cold air felt like it was cutting his cheeks and hands.   
"You missed all the fun," a random guy punched in Sokka's arm for some reason and left right away.

"Do you know that guy?" 

"I don't..." Sokka said.

This didn't look good, at all. The other people were maybe enjoying the ice as a little game, but the two guys know this just couldn't be good. Something was happening, and they had to know what as quickly as possible.


	8. Chapter 8

"I'm sorry good sir, but do you perhaps know what happened?" Zuko asked one of the first class people he saw passing by. The guy looked pretty old but also pretty rich, perhaps even richer than Zuko himself, but also pretty annoyed. Luckily, Sokka was still dressed in a suit and wouldn't get thrown off the deck. Sokka being third class was one of the least important things right now. 

"I don't but I'm sure it's nothing. It's Titanic after all, she's unsinkable. Just get back to your cabin, young boy," the guy sad, looking quite annoyed at the two boys and left. 

"I am so done with people repeating this ship is unsinkable," Zuko rolled his eyes and pulled on Sokka's sleeve so he'd follow. They had to find Mr. Andrews, and quickly. 

"Multiple papers said she's unsinkable," Sokka argued, but not strongly. Not in a voice that he really believed in himself. 

"They're not gonna put in the papers 'Titanic: most sinkable ship ever' or something, I bet it's just to get advertising they gave it the unsinkable title," Zuko said. 

"Do you think she will sink?" Sokka asked with big eyes. 

"I'm not saying she will, but she surely can. Ships are made of iron so sure she can," Zuko said.

"Where do you find a master shipbuilder..." Zuko said after a few seconds of looking and running around, more to himself than toward the other guy. 

"Maybe he's at a meeting to discuss what happened..." The other guy replied. Honestly, Zuko had been on enough ships, but he didn't quite knew how they worked.

"Perhaps he is..."

After a few minutes looking upon deck they went inside and were running towards the staircase. "I see him!" The taller boy grabbed Sokka's wrist and pulled him down the stairs, which almost caused them both to fall. 

"Mister Andrews? I'm sorry, I don't know if you reconise me, I'm Zuko son of Ozai and I-... I'd just like to know what just happened, if you will tell, Sir?" Zuko tried. It was very clear in his eyes he was just as scared as the two boys were. 

"I'm just back from the meeting actually and-... Please don't tell anyone, I don't want any commotion but... It's very likely all of this will be on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean soon," he said slowely, looking away from Zuko and Sokka who were both in shock, "I'm going to tell all the stewards to start handing out lifejackets, if you will excuse me. Good luck to you two, may the sea be gentle." 

Zuko could barely believe he said to not tell anyone to not make commotion, if the ship was sinking, everyone had to know as quickly as possible to save themselfs!

"Wha-... What are we..." Sokka started quietly after a few seconds. Both guys were absolutely in shock. 

"We have to tell my father and sister and Mai and your sister of course too and..." Zuko began nervously,"Sokka, there aren't enough lifeboats." He suddenly said. 

"What?" 

"There aren't even enough for half of the people and the water is freezing," he remembered a few things Mr. Andrews had told him at dinner that one time. Children and women would always go first too, but that he found was only fair. 

"Oh-" Sokka made a small noise. "Then there's no time to lose, we should get your family first. We're on your deck now anyway." He pulled himself up straight and slowly breathed in and out, trying to not stress both of them out. 

They ran to the cabins where Zuko's family stayed and decided to first wake up Mai, she may could help with Azula and Ozai. 

After a few minutes, she finally opened the door. Zuko was trying his hardest to not freak out for the sake of the other boy, even though he was quite sure he was doing the same. 

"Zuko, tell me dearie, do you have the special ability to knock on people's doors only when they are asleep?" Mai said annoyed. "Also, if this doesn't has a good reason, I swear to God- if you don't know how to kiss or something, your lips have to touch okay is that what you needed to know? Can I go back to sleep now?" Her eyes had dark circles under them and her nightgown was loosely around her body. Normally, the taller boy would blush at her comment but this time, he was busy with quite something else, but he did notice the guy next to him blushing. Wait did he also-...? There really isn't time for this...

"The ship is sinking," he said slowly, looking her straight in the eye. 

"What?" This surely shook her awake. 

"We talked to mr. Andrews. They were gonna start bringing lifejackets. It's not even a maybe, Mai, it's certain..." Mai was there too during the dinner where Andrews said there weren't enough lifeboats. 

"Are- you should go tell your dad and sister," she said. 

"I am going to right now," Zuko informed her. 

"With Sokka? No offence dearie," she looled at the guy still dressed in a suit, "but I don't think he exactly likes him..."

"I think there are bigger problems right now..." He trailed off. If his dad was still mad because Sokka was still there while the god damn ship was sinking, he was honesly gonna get mad. 

He knocked on his dad's door a few times and heard a quite loud growl. He probably also woke his dad up. Great, his mood was gonna be just great. 

"Zuko? Oh and Sokka is still here too I see," he growled. "What is it, son?" He didn't seem exaclty happy. "This better be very important."

"It kinda is, the ship is sinking," he replied. He was probably lucky this wasn't third class because there are so many people in the hallway, a whole lot of commotion would have started already. 

"What?" 

"Did you feel that shudder? Did you hear that metalic sound? I don't fully know what that was, Monsieur, but we've spoken to mr. Andrews, Titanic is sinking," Sokka said now. The taller boy wasn't quite sure why he decided to not let him say it, but to be honest, Sokka told it way more straight to the point. 

"This ship is unsinkable Zuko, I have enough of your games, go back to your cabin. And as for you, 'good monsieur' Sokka, don't you think it's time for you to go back to your cabin as well? All the way back in steerage, where you belong?" Ozai said, looking mad at the two boys. Zuko could barely believe it, his father thought he was lying about the ship sinking! His father genuinely though Zuko would make that up and wake him up for it in the middle of the night!

At that moment, a maid came in holding a few lifejackets in her hand. She had red curly hair and barely looked older than Zuko. The guy realized they probably won't even let employees into the lifeboats, and it hit him hard. "Please put on warm clothes and these lifejackets, gentlemen-"

"Not now," Ozai said. Zuko was literally blown away by his ignorance, "and learn to knock before entering someone's cabin."

"Sir, it are the captain's orders. It doesn't seem good, we-... The ship is sinking," she tried again. Zuko took two lifejackets, one for him and one for the other boy, who also was amazed by Ozai's answers. 

"W- you mean it's serious?" He suddenly said, like it just hit him. 

"Yes, sir, I've already woken up Ms. Azula, she and Ms. Mai are waiting in the hallway for you, but please remain calm and go to the lifeboats as quickly as possible," she said, now handing another one to Ozai and walking out of the door. She probably had a lot of people more to warn. 

"I can't believe you didn't believe us," Zuko said quietly. 

"We have other things about to worry now than decide if I do or don't believe you. Let's get to the lifeboat," the guy's father stood up and took his coat. "You should go back to your family too," he said then, towards Sokka. 

"You're suggesting he goes all the way back alone while the ship is sinking? No. I'm going to get Katara with him," Zuko said. He was certain of it now, he might couldn't have the guy as a lover, but he'd certainly have him as a friend. Such a good friend, and maybe a good friend was more important than his father. 

"Sokka, please go wait in the hallway? I promise I'm going to find Katara with you," he added. Sokka looked worried but did what Zuko had told him. It was time for Zuko to said things right. 

"Zuko, don't be stupid son, you're risking your life! And for what? For a gutter rat you met three days ago! You're gonna make new friends son, you don't even need friends, you're gonna marry Mai and get safe and well to America, you're going to do some good for this family for once!" Ozai yelled in anger once the boy was outside. Zuko had seen his father so angry before, but it had been quite a while to be honest, ever since he had Mai, it looked like Ozai was a tiny bit more proud of his boy. Well, up until now at least. 

"That's the thing dad," this was it. He was gonna say it, turn around and never look back. Perhaps this was all a terrible idea, abandon his father, but after what he had seen from Sokka he realized his family wasn't perhaps the most important thing in the words. "Maybe one day, he'll be more than just a friend," he thought maybe his father wouldn't get what he ment but then suddenly...

A hard, cold hand hit his left cheek with an incredible force. It wasn't the first time Ozai had hit Zuko, but it had been quite a time ago and he wasn't "used" to it anymore. Zuko stared at the ground, trying to show his father as less pain as possible. He tried his hardest to not fall on the floor from the impact and pain but pain was weakness. 

"NO SON OF MINE WI-" 

"Say no more, Sir, because I won't be your son anymore," the boy cut off his father before he could finish his sentence. Turning around and grabbing the doorknob. He felt a heavy hand grabbing his shoulder trying to get him to stay there, and even though the hand was strong, Zuko was stronger and fought against it. 

"YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR MIND! I knew you were a troubling child since the day you were born! Look at Azula!" Ozai yelled again, but it was too late, Zuko had opened the door and grabbed Sokka's wrist. 

"I'm sorry Mai. I certainly hope you'll make it out alive, and perhaps one day, we'll meet again," and with that, the two boys left and ran up the grand staircase. In the distance, he could hear wicked laughter from his sister and a well-meant 'good luck' from Mai. 

Once upon deck, Zuko was quite sure his father wasn't following him anymore and turned towards Sokka. He wasn't even sure if his father was ever following him but better safe than sorry. The boat was already lowering at the front side, it all went even quicker than excepted. 

"Could you-... Did you hear something back there?" The taller guy blushed. He certainly hoped the other guy hadn't heard the more than friends part. Or the part where his father was yelling at him, he felt kinda ashamed. 

"I didn't make out any words, I did hear yelling though and... Your face really doesn't look good," he said, putting his hand on Zuko's left cheek. The guy tried his hardest to not blush when the felt the warmth of Sokka's hand. Sokka came closer to Zuko and they were only a few inches away from eachother now. 

"Sokka, I-" the two guys were suddenly staring in eachother's eyes, but not in a creepy way, more in a soft and warm way, even though it was freezing outside. It almost felt like everything suddenly everything seemed right, like it was obvious Sokka was more important than his family. The decision Zuko made was honestly not very thought through and probably even stupid if he thought about it, but he didn't care. 

Sokka slowely inched closer and suddenly their mouths collided. The warmth of Sokka's mouth against Zuko's made them forget the freezing cold around them. It was like all the screaming voices in horror faded away, like they were the only people on the ship. 

After a few seconds that Zuko wished to be infinite, the younger boy slowly backed away. "I'm sorry, I really shouldn't have-... It's not-"

Zuko didn't let him finish and silenced him with a smaller and quicker kiss. 

"You're-... Okay with this?" The younger boy said awkwardly, obviously meaning two guys kissing with 'this'. 

"Yea well... Isn't it crazy? A few hours ago my father was still planning my marriage to Mai, and now I'm here... With you and without them... And it doesn't even feel strange or something..." The taller boy tried to explain. Explaining never really was his best thing. 

"I almost missed the boat, my sister and I were in a pub with two other friends as a goodbye sort of thing. We almost forgot the time and missed it. I'm glad we didn't," Sokka smiled. 

Was it really that easy to fall in love so fast? 

"About your sister, we might better go find her and find a way to.... You know..." Survive. 

"You're right," Sokka said and turned around. The two boys walked towards the thirdclass deck as they saw a few people looking at them in disgust, but they honeslty didn't care. Zuko didn't anyway. They also already saw some people lining up in front of the lifeboats and they could hear one of the officers yell 'Women and Children first'. No way Zuko and Sokka could ever get on one of the lifeboats, but to be honest, it was only fair. They had to find another way.


	9. Chapter 9

"Where are all the people?" Zuko noticed upon entering the third class hallways where no one was around, but they did hear a lot of voices. He expected people running and shouting around, maybe even freaking out, but no, no one was around. 

"They... They must have closed the gates!" Sokka suddenly said in horror. 

"The gates?" What gates was he even talking about? There were sort of gates to go from first to third class and stuff like that but he was quite sure Sokka wasn't talking about that. 

But the guy just pulled Zuko over to the next hall to show him instead of answering the question. An officer was telling people to stay back in front of a closed gate and behind those gates about a dozen of people were looking tired and scared. 

"What do you think you're doing?" Sokka asked the officer, who clearly didn't seem to like the young boy asking about his work.

"First and second class get to board the lifeboats first. After that, I can perhaps open the gates, IF I get the order to at least," he said, like it was obviously normal to lock people up like that. He didn't even look at the two guys while trying to push the third class passengers even more to the back. 

"Open the gates right now!" Zuko demanded. He looked at the people behind it and even saw some children no older than 10. He couldn't imagine being one of their parents having to their kids the ship is sinking and that they can't get to a lifeboat. 

"Go back to your families, you rich boys, let me do my job," the older guy said coldly. Sokka was clearly confussed for a second when the officer said he was rich too before realizing he was still wearing the suit. 

"Do you have captain's orders to lock these people up?" Zuko asked. He also had met John Edward Smith, the captain, once. He wasn't that bad and he surely wouldn't give orders to do this. 

"No, but I don't have the orders to open them either, so I'm not going to," the guy spat out. 

"Look Sir 'the officer'," Zuko said quietly, pushing the guy a bit to the back with one hand as he didn't want children to hear or make them scared, "the ship is bloody sinking, you can't lock them up and leave them here to drown!" 

"Let me go and go to your lifeboats yourself! This is third class, nothing you should be worrying about!" The older guy kicked Zuko from him. 

"I am a gentleman and I know women and children should go first! Here are plenty of people we can save!" The officer just ignored him. 

"Right, I tried it in a nice way but..." Before he knew it Zuko slammed his first into the guys nose and when the other guy grabbed to his face in pain, Zuko quickly took the keys out of his hand. 

Sokka was looking with the biggest eyes even in confusion at what just had happened. It's not like it was the first time Zuko had hit someone, but it's not what you call a hobby either. 

"Thank you," a little girl no older than seven said to Zuko when they all ran out right before she got pulled away by her mother. 

"That was really awesome what you did," Sokka smiled towards the taller guy. 

"We couldn't leave them here to die... Come, let's go find your sister!" Somehow, Zuko didn't like it when people pointed it out when he did something good. He knew it sounded weird and stupid but he'd get all blushy and stuff like that. Maybe he also didn't wanna make clear he wasn't such a strong and hard character as his father would never be proud of the fact that he wasn't. 

"If she's still in her cabin, that would be very nice..." Sokka said, running together with the taller guy closer to where her cabin was. The two guys started noticing the ship clearly wasn't nicely horizontally anymore and started to dip with it's front more and more into the water. "Look," Sokka pointed at the end of the hallway where water already started rising and stopped running. 

 

"Do you still want to go look? Because The water doesn't seem that high yet, we have enough time probably..." the richer guy said. 

"No, I mean, it's not like she's gonna stay in her cabin if the waterlevel is rising... Maybe she's already up on deck..." Sokka tried to sound certain and sure of what he just had said, but it was clear in his voice it was more hoping than knowing. 

"Maybe we could walk around some more, maybe there are more officerassholes closing gates?" Zuko proposed. He usually wouldn't call people just doing their job like that but well...

"Yea, let's try that," the tanned boy agreed. 

After a bit of walking (and already getting their feet wet once or twice because of the quick rising waterlevel within the ship that they did not expect), they found another gate, only with two differences; one, at least triple the amount of people were behind it or even more, but Zuko was quite bad at guessing amounts of things, and secondly, this time they were on the same side as the people. 

"KATARA!" Sokka suddenly yelled up while scanning the crowd. In front of them, right in front of the gates, the girl was clinging on the bars. Only she was not alone, she was holding on to a smaller kid by her side, a kid neither boys knew. 

"Sokka?" She turned around and her eyes widened and backed away from the gates to hug her brother. Zuko awkwardly stood there with the little kid while the two siblings were hugging. 

"Who is this little girl?" Sokka said in a childish voice, making the taller boy snort. 

"This is a little kid I found alone in a hallway. We have to help her! I don't think she speaks english though..." She said, the little girl looked up in confusion. 

"Parlez-vous francais?" Sokka tried. The girl did nothing. "Nederlands?" He said the Dutch word for Dutch. No reaction. "Deutsch?" He tried German. Nothing. 

"Does someone know any other languages perhaps?" Zuko asked the two siblings. 

"Ah, you're here too?" She asked towards the guy without replying, but it came out quite friendly. 

"You'll probably see him more often if we survive this..." Sokka winked at Zuko but the guy just rolled his eyes. It really wasn't appropriate at the minute to be honest. And did they really have to tell Katara? Did they have to tell anyone?

"What? You-... Sokka, we've talked about this, it's not up to a boy to..." She started making arm movements and started whispering, as if Sokka had done this more often, and as if she knew what 'this' is 

"As much as I like this conversation," Zuko said in a sarcastic voice, "it's really not the time..." 

"Right," Sokka said and pulled himself up straight, "I have a plan but I need some things for it, do you by any chance have a bobby pin?" 

"Yea..." Katara quickly took one out of her hair and handed it to her brother. 

"I'm going to try and open the lock with the pin, can you two push officers away from the gates?" 

The plan sounded easy enough, but doing it was a tiny bit harder. First of all, it's not easy to push officers and stewards away when you're on the other side of a gate because all you can do is stick your arms between the holes in the gates, and secondly, there's a reason people don't tend to use bobby pins as keys. 

After a while it eventually worked but from there on, the people were unstopable. From the moment the lock fell off, everyone started pushing the gates open and it was a huge mess, people pushing eachother and just trying to be the first one out. The stewards and officers fell on the floor and almost got knocked out, but the two boys and girl understood the reason really, everyone was scared, and why should they not be? The bloody ship was sinking. 

"We're sorry Sir, please realize we didn't have another choise," Zuko held is hand out towards one of the workers and helped him get up. Katara and her brother didn't really understand why he was helping him after being to brutal but okay. 

"We have to get you two to a boat," Sokka said towards his sister, who was still holding on to the little girl. 

"What about you?" She asked. She didn't quite look the same as when they first met, her hair was all over the place and even though she tried to look normal and not freaking out, her eyes said something totally different. She was also wearing a light dress, Zuko was sure she would probably freeze to death in no time if she wouldn't get to a boat. 

"Women and children first," Zuko explained plainly. 

"But you-.... We have to find a way to get you on too I-"

"Katara, no," the tanned boy cut of his sister. Both Zuko and he realized it would be a coward way to get on the boats and they knew what would happen without the boat but they'd find a way. 

"Please try?" She said, now worried look on her face. 

"We'll be safe, I promise," Zuko cut in. He wasn't fully sure how to fulfill that promise as you can't really escape a sinking boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on any other way than a lifeboat but okay. 

"Yea? How are you planning on doing that? Money can't save you from the water," She said in a sarcastic voice. 

"Money won't save me from anything anymore now I gave it up!" Zuko raised his voice. 

"What? Why? Please don't tell it's because of my brother! Oh God Sokka!" 

"Katara, please? We have to get you to a lifeboat!" Her brother begged. 

"Fine," she rolled her eyes, "follow me." 

They went through a few more hallways until they came upstairs. It was only then they noticed how close the boat was to fully going down. The front half was almost fully underwater, it probably wouldn't take more than an hour before it all was gone. Well, there goes the 'unsinkable' ship. 

"There's on that side there are barely people boarding! They're throwing away so much space what are they even doing?" Zuko said, pointing at one of the boats and pulling Katara with him towards it. Her brother and the little kid who had said nothing yet followed them. 

"I guess this is goodbye," she said in a broken voice when they arrived and was about to step in the boat. Her eyes started to tear and she tried to stare at te ground. 

"Don't do that, don't say goodbye, this is not the end okay?" Sokka said, giving her a quick hug, but Zuko saw how he tried to keep his tears in just as much as his sister was. Sometimes he wondered if he was the only one with a bad family history and a sister who couldn't stand him, but he was quite sad for the two. 

"Good luck," she said to both guys and stept into the lifeboat. The whole way they were lowering the boat she looked at the two guys, and the two looked back at her. Zuko could stop his tears, not because he was heartless but because he had to, for Sokka. Sokka himself was crying lightly, and Katara was clearly crying her eyes out, but in a silent way to not scare any of the other people even more. 

It was 1:10 AM, 15th of April. On Katara's lifeboat there were three men (two of them were in charge of the boat, Zuko thought they were quartermaster Hitchens and one of the lookouts he didn't know the name from, but he had seen him round, and the other one was a guy who he reconised as Arthur Godfrey Peuchen. He noticed it was the only guy officer Lightoller would let on one of the lifeboats in general), one woman he had known as the Margaret Brown who had been so nice to him (who didn't exactly went into the boat because she wanted to, some crewmember simply picked her up and put her there like a sort of lifeless corpse) and some other women. Zuko noticed how there were only about 28 people on this boats, and most could hold at least 70.


	10. Chapter 10

"So... What are we gonna do now?" Zuko asked after a while. The two were just staring at the small rowboat Katara was in to see it becoming smaller and smaller every minute. Sokka's eyes looked broken, and yet somehow tender. 

"I don't know," the guy said. They couldn't just stand here until the boat goes down, right? "Hey, is that your family?" Sokka suddenly looked up at the left. Like two lines where people boarding into lifeboats. Ozai was clearly in an agrument with one of the head officers, and Mai didn't seem to be impressed at all, and Azula, well, she just kind of rolled with her eyes. 

"What are they still doing here? I thought they got on the boats an hour ago?" Zuko spoke confused. 

"Wanna... Wanna speak to them?" The other guy asked with an undetstanding look on his face. "I mean, looks like you can still go with them... I'd understand I mean-"

"Oh hell no," Zuko cut off the smaller boy. When he got nervous he started to curse most of the time, certainly if his father wasn't around but it's not like anyone would spend time on lecturing him for that right now, right? "But I do wanna go look what they're doing..." He quickly added. 

The two guys mixed in with the crowd waiting for the boat the line next to his family's. It was close enough to see and hear everything, but it wasn't exactly subtle. Well, it didn't matter that much anyway, Ozai was clearly too busy to notice them, Mai wouldn't say anything about it probably and Azula, well, Azula could notice them, but Zuko really didn't care. 

"I don't think you understand what I'm offering you!" Ozai said, subtly taking a bit of money out of his pocket and giving it to the officer, who refused and pushed it back to Ozai. 

"I don't think you understand, Sir," the guy began, "money can save neither me nor you from the freezing water." 

"I have these two children with me, I need them to get safe to America, one of them is my daughter, the other one my daughter-in-law!" Ozai almost fake cried now, and he was a terrible actor. Mai rolled with her eyes but Azula acted with, giving her father a hug, trying to convience the officer she really couldn't go without him. 

"They're old enough to be concidered women rather than children," the guy had a straight face and tried to show as less emotion as possible. "And the one that's married certainly won't need you."

"They're not officially married yet and the groom... God knows where he is-... We haven't seen him since the sinking, sir, it's already been a great loss for me and the two girls... And for the adult thing, I think not, how old does one have to be to be concidered an adult? Some people may never become adults! It's all in the mind," the thing about Ozai was, he was great at talking his way out of stuff, and Zuko hated it. 

"Sir I really-"

"You see, do you know J. M. Barrie, the well known author? He wrote this marvelous book 'Peter Pan', also known as The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. The book only came out last year but the play came out in 1904," Ozai said, as if it had anything to do with the sinking of the ship ir the fact that she could go on a lifeboat at all, "I bet a smart guy like you sees plenty of plays." 

The officer pushed his lips together untill they made a small line and finally said, "Sir, we're waisting so much time, go into the lifeboat for all I care, but please realize it's a coward way, and it's also not because of your Peter Pan speech." 

And so Zuko and Sokka saw the older boy's family's boat lowering more and more. Zuko was quite sure Mai had noticed him and he was very thankful that she didn't say anything. He could imagine that if he had never met Sokka, he'd be on that boat now too. Apparently, nothing, not even death, could help him escape from his family, well except for Sokka. 

"I can't believe they're letting the orchestra play songs right now," the tanned guy said suddenly, trying to change the subject, trying to sound comforting even. Zuko had barely noticed them to be very honest, but he guessed it did cause a little less panic, he just wasn't quite sure if a 'little less panick' was good in situations like this. 

"At least they can go down doing something they hopefully love." 

"We could do that too... Something we love I mean, " Sokka grinned and inched closer to Zuko just to give him a quick kiss on the mouth. The boy's cheeks went bright pink and for like 0.001 second he was actually happy that the ship was sinking so no one gave a damn about them two. Then the of course realized sinking means dying and quickly shook that thought off. 

"God, you're so inappropriate!" He pushed the guy away but couldn't help a small laugh. 

"Yea well, these are maybe just the last few hours we have in our lives and I-... I wanna make the best out of it," Sokka suddenly had to bite away the tears. 

"We'll get out of this," Zuko told him, he stood tall and confident for some reason. He was tired of being scared, not that there are many ways to win against a freezing Ocean. 

"How? Zuko, the water is below zero... People don't survive that tempature..." The spark in his eyes was gone since the past few hours and it physically hurt Zuko for some reason. 

"Maybe I can..." Zuko pushed the younger guy a bit to the back and looked around to make sure no one was listening with "maybe I can heat up the water... But I probably can't do it for everyone I mean I can't just heat up the whole ocean but I mean... I think I can keep us alive... Or maybe I can't heat up the water but fire is still hot and I-"

"But wouldn't that be just as coward as stepping on a lifeboat right now?" Sokka looked away, knowning that, deep down, he wanted to be saved from Titanic too, just like anyone here. 

"No because that means there are two more spaces on the lifeboats- two lives saved-... I know it's not ideal but I can't do much more, I don't even know if I can do what planned..." The pale boy bit on his lip, hoping that he could do it. 

"Okay..." Sokka said. "So what now?" 

They look to the side, the front was already fully underwater. People started pulling on the lifeboats more, finally filling them up a bit, people started to panic. 

"I'm guessing it won't take too much time anymore, to be honest," Zuko looked worried. 

"What do you think is gonna happen? Do we have like- a plan?" Sokka asked. Most of the time, the paler boy had a plan, he didn't need to worry much about that. 

"She's gonna go down by the front but... There's no way she will go straight down, she's gonna break in two for sure," he knew it for sure for some reason, like he was the master shipbuilder himself. 

"How do you know that?" The other guy asked in confusion. 

"Well- I know a bit about ships and it just kinda seems logic to me I mean- It weights tons... No way it can keep it all up,"

"You and all your things you learn at fancy schools," he joked and they laughed. Zuko wasn't quite sure if he learned that at school (okay he was 99.99% sure he didn't), but there was some truth in there, he guessed. 

Suddenly, everyone started screaming and the back part of the ship began to elevate a bit. 

"We have to get to the back of the ship-..." Zuko turned around but couldn't help but noticing the fear in the other boy's eyes. "Do you trust me?"

The boy looked at Zuko for a second before grabbing his hand, "of course I trust you," and they started running, running up like most other people. It wasn't as easy as it looked like, running up a boat with tons of other people but they tried their hardest. 

It was actually crazy to think about it, Zuko had never trusted anyone as much as he trusted the tanner guy, and yet they only knew eachother for days. 

"I hope you have some arm muscles," the taller boy quickly laughed to get Sokka t bit less scared. They were holding into the railing as the ship stuck more and more in the air.

"I sure do, but wouldn't it be easier to just climb over I mean-"

"No, the ship will split in two for a second, it will fall back for a second and no way we can hold on for that. After it starts sticking up a second time, we climb over," he wasn't quite sure himself how he even came up with this plan, it's just felt kinda obvious for some reason. 

"Okay, whatever you say... Like I said, I trust you-..."

And suddenly, everything went incredibly quick, everyone was holding on to railings, some people couldn't hold on and fell in the dept of the sea, others were screaming for there life, like someone could hear them, like someone could help them, but there was no help left now. The power went out and the two boys fell eachother's breath get heavier. It didn't even seem real, it just looked like one big nightmare. Here's the thing about tragedies like this, you'll never think it'll happen and so you'll never think about it and if you do you don't know what to 'expect' and how you're gonna handle it on the moment so you can't possibly be prepared. 

"Maybe you don't have the arm muscles," Sokka joked, and he was right, Zuko didn't, it was super hard for him to hold on but he wasn't planning on letting go, not before he could safe Sokka from the waters. After this, he was gonna start working out. 

"I guess you should become my personal coach after this," he joked back. 

"Don't they give you stuff like sports in those fancy, expensive schools?" Sokka grinned until they got cut of by even more screams and a loud cracking noise. It was so loud, Zuko became dizzy (which always happened for some reason when he was at a place with too loud sounds). He quickly told the other guy "this is it, hold on real tight," before the even louder crack that almost split the boat, making the backpart fall into the water with a loud splash. The boy could only think about all those people who maybe fell under the boat. 

"Climb over!" Zuko yelled over all the other screams before Sokka could even thing about what just had happened. It was one big chaos and everyone was panicking, but he knew that if he'd do that, they'd be doomed for sure. 

"You sure?" Sokka asked anyway. 

"Sure," Zuko confirmed and climbed over now the boat wasn't fully vertical anymore, which made it a lot easier. 

The chaos came back when the ship started moving again. 

"She's gonna suck us down if we go down with her like this," Sokka said. He maybe didn't know as much about it as the other guy, but he wasn't stupid. 

"I know. Take a really big breath and kick to the surface as hard as you can. Yell my name so I can find you if I drift off. I don't have a great feeling for orientation at night in the Ocean," he laughed, "We'll make it... Together," Zuko tried to sound as less scared as possible. 

"I love you."

"Don't-"

Before the taller boy could even answer, their bodies hit the cold icy water that felt like daggers in their bodies. The power with which Titanic was sucking down was incredible, but Zuko tried all he could. He made a promise. 

"SOKKA!" He came above the surface. "SOKKA!" He looked around and saw so many people splashing and trying to swim, for a second he thought it'd be impossible to find the other guy back. If he made it back...

"ZUKO?" He suddenly heard. 

"SOKKA!" The guy swam to the voice in the distance as quickly as possible, but he wasn't the only voice. Screams were heard from what felt like a thousand people. 

"TH-THERE YOU-U ARE!" Sokka grabbed Zuko and held on to the nearest chair floating around in the water that wasn't 'claimed' yet. It was one of those fold-chairs that were quite big when fold up, actually. He was sure Sokka could fit almost fully on it. 

"It- it's so c-cold," Zuko said and tried to add, "t-try to g-get on the chair as m-much as p-possible."

"W-what 'bout you?" 

"I-I can k-keep myself on temperature," at least, he could try. He tried to inhale deeply, letting all the energy flow through his body, and it worked somehow. He was cold, sure, but not as cold as before. Not cold enough to die. "See, I don't need to-... Warm up the sea," he whispered in a jokily tone. 

"I-I'm r-really co-old though," the other guy complained. He couldn't possibly heat him up without other people seeing it, but he promised himself that if things get out of hand, he would NEVER let Sokka die, certainly not freeze to death. 

"We just need to wait till the voiced fade- till-..." 

"Till the p-people die?" Sokka asked.  
It was cruel, sure, but there was no other way. He couldn't safe everyone, and if someone else saw him bending, they would demande it for sure. 

He placed his hands on Sokka's face, knowing that he was cold and his hands were warm. In that position, it almost was easy to forget they were in the Arctic Ocean with scream people on the background. He felt amost wonderful, but then he remembered Sokka was probably was colder than him, and so were the other hundereds of people. 

"Please hang in there," Zuko said and gave him a quick kiss. The amount of quick kisses they had given eachother already that night was surreal for Zuko, seeing as Sokka is a man and he is officially engaged to Mai, but it still felt right, and for some reason, it wasn't even that hard to keep warm. Man, if he knew he could do that earlier, he didn't have to look like an eskimo every winter. 

"Hold-d my h-hands," the guy tried to hide he was cold but he wasn't fooling anyone. 

"Very romantic," Zuko joked, "I didn't know you had it in you." 

"My ha-hands are just gonna f-freeze off if you don't."

"We're gonna make it, okay?" He tried heating up his hands even more. He didn't know if he could do this the whole time though. "And so are your hands."

"Easy for you to s-say," he meant it as a joke, but the older boy knew he was right. It was easy for him to day, barely being cold in the freezing water while maybe thousand were suffering. 

"You're right, I'm gonna save my power for us... Later," he let go of the energy that was flowing within him and fell the cold to his flesh and bones like a knife right away. "For you."

"But you're d-directly in the w-water... Take c-care..." Sokka said worrying, but Zuko decided to not answer, save his breath, save his warmth. 

A whole time went by (it felt like years but he assumed it was probably only a few minutes), and for a second, Zuko thought the lifeboats would never come back, but he couldn't lose hope. He had used his 'power' a few times while waiting but barely, only when he thought he wouldn't make it anymore from the cold. He wasn't gonna leave Sokke behind. 

"T-t-the screamss s-stopped," Zuko suddenly shook Sokka's hands. The boy let out a small sound and barely moved. Zuko knew he had to do something even though he checked the boy's pulse every few seconds, just to be sure. 

He looked around one more time, the people around him looked like plastic dolls, their voices died down and their faces were frozen. The taller boy tried to concentrate, which was hard in this water, and let the energy within him one more time. He held a small flame in his hand and 'heated up himself' too. He wasn't quite sure if it'd help but he knew for a fact that "warming up the water" wouldn't, as Sokka was barely in it anyway. He held it close to the other guy's face and laid his hand on his shoulder. 

"Does that help?" Zuko said, trying to make the flame a bit bigger. 

"Yea, but so-someone will notice, I can't let you do this I..." 

"I don't care," and he didn't, not anymore. People around them were moveless, maybe there were a couple of people left who were still alive, and he was sure they were gonna spend their last bit of energy on something else than watching the two boys. "After all, perhaps it's time I realize what I can do with this... Bending..."

"It's only a matter of time before the lifeboats get back," he went on, "does that help?"

"Sort o-of, bu-but how c-can you be so sure..." Sokka was still cold, but it was certaintly better than nothing, "you really don't have to do this-... For me..."

"Oh yes I do, and not just because you drive me crazy in a good way," the pale guy smiled. 

Somehow, Zuko managed to keep up the fire for what seemed like at least half an hour more, when suddenly screams were heard in the distance, "is anyone alive out there?" 

"Sokka!" He quickly did out the fire, making both boys shiver right away, but they couldn't step on the lifeboat that way, well maybe Sokka could but Zuko didn't even seem cold at all, people would ask questions. "Make some noise, they can't pass us..."

"WE'RE HERE!" The tanned boy yelled while Zuko splashed his hand in the water (like that would draw some attention) and yelled "PLEASE HELP!"

"DO NOT WORRY, WE'RE COMING!" He heard back in the distance. 

"We-we m-made it-" Zuko said, smiling, still splashing in the water because he wasn't quite sure of the officers knew exactly where they were. 

"We m-made a bit too many pr-romises-s not to-" Sokka laughed. 

They finally got into the lifeboat after a few minutes and got wrapped up in blankets right away. Right in front them sat another woman, but she looked way worse than they did. It was a weird feeling only three got saved from the water yet, and it made them feel a bit guilty, but they couldn't do more and they knew that too. 

Zuko couldn't help himself and pulled Sokka into another kiss, a proper one this time, and no one even noticed. But they made it, they made it together, and all they could do was pray that Katara and Mai were safe too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my first multiple chapter Zukka fanfic and I had tons of fun writing it and it surely won't be my last Zukka fanfic :) I hope you all enjoyed :D


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